It is a widely shared opinion that the June 2015 general elections in Turkey will be a decisive moment in contemporary Turkish politics. The opinion seems to be grounded on two pivotal issues, one regarding an institutional change in the constitution, the other relating to the "solution process" of the Kurdish question. It is no secret that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) project a shift from a predominantly parliamentary form of government to what they prefer to call "Turkish style presidentialism". It has been articulated by the party leadership, most importantly by Erdogan, that presidentialism is a must if Turkey is to become a powerful country not only in the Middle East, but also in world politics. Solution of the Kurdish problem, in this perspective, depends also the formation of a strong and effective government unfettered by what the AKP deems as "tutelary bureaucracy" still entrenched in the Constitution. AKP, to be sure, made many important reforms in the past most of which contributed, among many others, to the democratic solution of the Kurdish question. Since the 2011 elections, however, the government's overtly oppressive reaction to social and political opposition is taken to be a sign to AKP's essential "Islamist nationalist ideology" in which there is some room for ethno-religious plurality. AKP's ability to solve the Kurdish question is restricted with the ethno-religious plurality within what we might call "a populist reconstruction" of the Ottoman imperial past. As for the opposition, on the other hand, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), share a rather narrow vision with either little or no room for the solution of Kurdish demands. As Kurdish demands include a re-writing of Turkey's political identity to embrace cultural identity and difference, the opposition reacts to protect "the integrity of the nation and the state" as fundamental tenets of the unitary establishment of the Republic ever since its inception in 1923. Thus, Turkey, on the way to one of the most decisive political moments in its history, has come to a crossroads with various forms of nationalism.
This panel, comprising four papers, aims at taking up political issues Turkey has been facing recently. Drawing upon different theoretical perspectives on nationalism and diverse methodologies of ideology and discourse analyses in social and political theory, the panel tries to provide answers questions of what we might call "the nationalist impasse" in contemporary Turkey.
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Prof. Huseyin Levent Koker
Turkey has been in search for a new constitution since 2007 but failed to build a consensus in late 2013. This failure, however, does not mean that the reasons for the need for a new constitution are not existent any more. To the contrary, there are (1) Issues stemming from demands regarding recognition of identity and difference; (2) other problems emanating from the problem-creating organization of the government, i.e. the contradictions between a basically parliamentary form of government with a relatively strong presidency elected by direct popular vote; and (3) the requisites of EU membership. Having said this, the paper will dwell upon the relationship between the first and the third. There is a strong connection between the issues of recognition stemming from current constitutional definition of the Turkishness in accordance with "Atatürkist nationalism" and the requisites of EU membership. The paper argues that the constitution-making process has been one of learning and correcting past mistakes. Correction, however, requires a redefinition of political identity, which in turn requires a radical change in the conception of "us and them" upon which the constitutional order is to be built. Turkey, in other words, has to redefine the political identity to include previously excluded and oppressed identity groups like Kurds, Alevis, and "non-muslims", including a critical assessment of the early 20th century history. This redefinition of political identity, on the other hand, will aid Turkey in meeting the political standards of EU membership. Since membership in the EU as a "supranational" entity entails a transformation of the concept of national sovereignty. Be as it may, however, Turkey is now torn apart between Kemalist/Atatürkist nationalists on the one hand and Islamists on the other; creating an “impasse” of “nationalist” polarization in the political public sphere. That is to say that Turkey has been divided between Islamist-nationalism (AKP) and Kemalist-nationalism (CHP/MHP), both of which are not conducive for resolving the Kurdish question on multiculturalist democratic grounds. The paper, thus, is a critical examination of this situation of “nationalist impasse” and tries to evaluate the key role of the Kurdish political movement on the way to constructing a new democratic polity in Turkey.
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Prof. Ulku Doganay
In the wake of 2015 general elections, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) who labeled itself as “conservative democrat” in its formative years in the early 2000’s now portrays a self-image which, as a consequence of authoritarian policies, has drifted away from earlier democratic claims to become more strongly conservative. Having put forward a significant political will to carry out democratic reforms required on the basis of EU conditionality, the AKP, since the year 2006 when the EU membership negotiations have come to a deadlock, has distanced itself in foreign policy from the EU and NATO centered perspectives and slowed down first, reversed gradually later the democratic reforms. Especially in the aftermath of the 2011 elections, it can be noted that policies violating fundamental democratic rights and principles such as personal freedom, freedom of the press and judicial independence have started to take effect. A similar process has coincided with the rise of the political discourse of “Neo-Ottomanism” within the context of what the former Foreign Minister, now Prime Minister Davutoğlu called “the strategic depth”, a foreign policy choice with an alleged potential to resolve the issues stemming from the rights-based demands of the Kurds in Turkey. This has been, in fact, a reproduction of the myth of “Ottomanism” which is deemed as providing for a reference for peaceful co-existence of diverse ethno-religious identities. In Erdoğan’s and Davutoğlu’s speeches the Ottoman Empire has been narrated as an ideal polity in characterized by the predominance of multiculturalism, as a great power ruled over the world, and as a moral center for all Muslims. This emphasis on the Ottoman Empire and “Ottomanism” present not only in the speeches of the president but also in the discourses of leading cadres of the party, taken together with the claims to carry out an “active” foreign policy in the Middle East and demands for a presidential government, leads to an argument that a shift of future perspective for Turkey from a democratic and secular country integrated with the West to a country searching for an idealized Ottoman imperial heritage has been taking place. This paper, thus, examines the ways in which the AKP leadership cadres’ Ottomanism discourses will be formed in June 2015 general election campaigns and the Ottomanism discourses relations with the problem of democracy in Turkey.
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Nur Betül Çelik
This paper will focus on the varying articulations of nationalism into the discourses of main political actors in the last decade of Turkey. Both the political achievements of the Kurdish movement and the rule of the Justice and Development Party (an Islamist conservative party) during this period of time dislocated the political centre which had historically been the Kemalist nation-state. The arising antagonisms and new political frontiers of the new era also created a shift in the nationalist subject-position(s), transforming the limits of nationalism and articulating new elements into the nationalist discourse. Using the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau, the paper will try to trace this shift, seeking a new perspective and conceptualization to understand the nature of nationalism(s) in Turkey. Secondly, the paper will endeavour to show how new antagonisms and political frontiers are constituted through new nationalistic discourses at a time when we are closing to the general election of June 2015.
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Halise Karaaslan Sanli
Co-Authors: Kenan Demirci, Inan Ozdemir Tastan
Democracy and Nationalism in Political Party Leader’s Speeches: An Assessment with a Focus on 2015 Elections
Liberal democracy, a political regime founded on shared principles, cannot exist independently of the social, economic and political circumstances of different societies, leading to diverse configurations in different historical settings. Thus, this diversity can be accounted for in light of the specificities of the social and political conditions within which a liberal democratic development takes place.
This being said, it has to be stressed that in Turkey, political developments take place in a societal setting highly determined by nationalism. In view of the exclusionary nature of nationalism not conducive for an inclusive democracy, supports the idea that analyses of nationalism in Turkey will shed light on the future route of political development.
In this paper, aiming to examine the relationships between nationalism and democracy in political leader’s electoral campaign speeches, will concentrate on the “Kurdish issue” and “democratic opening”, themes with increasing central significance in political discourse especially after 2005. The paper, will try to focus on the ways in which political pary leaders tackle these centrally important themes in their political speeches and how they articulate their positions vs-a-vis different contextual nationalisms. The paper hopes to enlighten how the exclusionary-inclusionary dichotomies, or polarizations limit their abilities in coming to terms with the democracy problem.
The paper will examine the recorded speeches of political party leaders and make use of quantitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis method. The paper will use, also, the categories already beign used in a project, which is carried out by the authors of the present paper, sponsored by Turkish Institution of Scientific and Technological Research (TÜBITAK) entitled “The Disocurse of Democracy in Political Party Leaders’ Electoral Campaign Speeches”. The analyses in this paper covers, among other themes mentioned above, the emphases on national unity and integrity, domestic and foreign security, cultural rights and rights to personality and its limits.
