This study focuses on “civilizationism” as a political ideology through exploring the academic and political texts and discourses of Prof. Ahmet Davutoğlu and Prof. İbrahim Kalın both of whom foster the intellectual roots and long-term state policies of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP). This subject is worth of inquiry to understand the proliferating political and social interest in civilization in contemporary Turkey, which has been ruled by the AKP governments since 2002. While the AKP initially manifested its political ideology as conservative democracy, civilization, has been the main driving ideological concept when the political elites’ discourses and the policies of the AKP governments are considered. Civilizationist ideology shows up in various state policies like the national higher education, social and cultural policies, urban policy, architecture, arts, and foreign affairs. This study aims to explore the intellectual roots of civilization as an ideology by analyzing the textual and discursive materials by Davutoğlu and Kalın, both of whom have served in state bureaucracy, while the former was banished from prime ministry and the party in 2016, the latter still serve for the state as Presidential Spokesperson. Davutoğlu served as a chief advisor to Erdoğan, was an ambassador, prime minister, and the chairperson of the AKP, along with his academic positions as a professor of political science. This paper focuses on Davutoğlu’s and Kalın’s conceptualizations of civilization to explore how they develop the term in different ways particularly in relation to identity formation, sense of belongingness, nationalism, and Turkey’s national identity. While Davutoglu’s account defines civilization as a sense-of-self that shapes an individual’s sense of existence in relation to one’s own society based on space, time, knowledge, and nature, Kalin defines civilization from a cosmological perspective, as manifestation of a particular worldview and an idea of existence in a particular time and space. Kalın’s account paves the way for identity politics. I argue that while Davutoğlu’s approach leads to the revival of Ottoman civilization endorsed as an Ottoman-style multicultural system that is more inclusive of religious and ethnic minorities, Kalın’s approach allows for a more nationalistic conceptualization of civilization. This difference became significant in 2016 when Davutoğlu was banished from the party, whereas Kalin stayed on as one of the chief advisors whose views allowed the AKP to adopt ethnic nationalism.