Foreign policy as a means of the AKP's struggle with Kemalism in relation to domestic variables

Creative Commons License

Ege A.

TURKISH STUDIES, cilt.23, sa.4, ss.554-575, 2022 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 23 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2022
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/14683849.2022.2066527
  • Dergi Adı: TURKISH STUDIES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Historical Abstracts, Index Islamicus, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Political Science Complete, Public Affairs Index, Sociological abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.554-575
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: AKP, kemalism, Turkish foreign policy, neo-Ottomanism, democratization, islamization, TURKEYS, DEMOCRATIZATION, WESTERN, PARTY, RULE
  • Marmara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This article provides analyzes how foreign policy affects domestic politics, in particular the AKP's struggle with Kemalism. It examines how Kemalism was delegitimized through the initial democratic, pro-European Union and pro-West discourse of the AKP. It then analyzes Kemalism's marginalization under the civilizational, neo-Ottoman discourse advanced by Ahmet Davutoglu. Finally, it explores Kemalism's alienation through the opposition CHP, which has been impacted by the neo-Ottoman discourse, as currently constructed. It concludes that the AKP's struggle with Kemalism did not end even when it established control over the state and when the ideological Kemalist nation-state identity was replaced by a new content in the form of an Ottoman-Islamic civilization. The article relies on a method of interpretative analysis of the AKP and Kemalist movements.