Fuzzy Borders between Populism and Sacralized Politics: Mission, Leader, Community and Performance in ‘New’ Turkey

Abstract

Why do right-wing populist leaders routinely resort to religious appeals? How should the religious symbolism in populist politics be interpreted? To address these questions, this study shifts attention to symbolic, ritualistic and emotive mobilization by populism through insights from cultural sociology and 'sacralization of politics'. Populists in power sacralize the political arena by attributing nominally secular entities such as the nation, the state and the leader 'religious' traits as objects of loyalty and faith. By creating a syncretic amalgamation of the secular and religious domains, they perpetuate the dichotomy between the people and the powerful enemy, despite changing boundaries of both categories. Using the case of Turkey as illustration, the study examines three features of sacralized politics: (1) mission led by a sacrosanct leader, (2) consecration of elect community/the nation, and (3) performance politics that substitutes democratic participation. The findings suggest that beyond the instrumental use of religious tropes for political gain, right-wing populists rally support by selectively evoking the 'cultural toolkit' available to them. They also construct a specific group identity by evoking collective memory. Researchers should pay more attention to populists' embeddedness in cultural structures in which religion remains a powerful pillar and resonate well with their audiences. In 2015, the Turkish president Erdoğan was holding a copy of the Quran in Kurdish at an electoral rally in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in the country. He assured the audience by stating that 'nobody could dare to split the motherland, divide the nation and destroy the flag' and invited the Kurdish people to support the AKP's revivalist 2023 goals 1 and unite behind 'one nation, one flag, one motherland and one religion'. 2 In 2018, in a completely different context, a billboard featured a photo of Trump with the slogan 'Make the Gospel Great Again' and a verse from the Bible. Hours after, Trump delivered a speech themed

A Loyal Base: Support for Authoritarian Regimes in Times of Crisis

“…Within the discourse of the regime, Erdogan is portrayed as a leader with extraordinary features and devotion to the nation. Occasionally, this personality cult results in the violation of the boundary between the religious and political domains, as Erdogan is referred as "a leader who gathers all of Allah's qualities in himself," and "the shadow of Allah on earth" (Yabanci 2020). This discourse resonates with Erdogan's voters as well, who use emotionally-laden concepts, such as love, affection, and loyalty when referring to him (C ¸elik and Balta 2020: 168).…”

“Are You God? Damn Your Family!”: The Islam–Gender Nexus in Right-Wing Populism and the New Generation of Muslim Feminist Activism in Turkey

“…AKP's populist construction of the "good" people against the secular elite has for a long time relied upon the framing of Islam as a powerful category of identity and belonging and a unifying force that can mobilize Muslim masses through a narrative of victimhood, stressing the right violations that religiously observant Muslims experienced under ultra-secular policies in modern Turkey (Yabanci 2020;Yilmaz 2017). As the party has consolidated its rule, especially in the post-2011 period, and Muslim piety ceased to be a source of this victimhood narrative, resentful subject formation of Turkish Islamist identity that casts pious Muslims as victims of ultra-secular policies is elevated to a new level where populist antagonisms transgress the "secular versus pious" dichotomy and operationalize an "us versus them" mentality to vilify the opponents of the political regime (Tokdo gan 2020).…”

Religion in Creating Populist Appeal: Islamist Populism and Civilizationism in the Friday Sermons of Turkey’s Diyanet

“…Recently, populism has been widely adopted to frame the political activities of the Erdogan regime (Selçuk 2016;Yabanci 2016;Kirdiş and Drhimeur 2016;Özpek and Yaşar 2018;Yilmaz 2018;Castaldo 2018;Özçetin 2019;Sawae 2020;Tas 2020), especially in studies of Erdogan's populist framing of political crises (Türk 2018). Moreover, there are studies looking at the role of religion in the populist appeals of Erdogan's AKP and analysis of the religious references in his regimes' populist narratives (Yabanci and Taleski 2018;Yabanci 2020). There is also an emerging literature on the Diyanet and its political activities; however, this either discusses how the Diyanet is used as or transformed into a political instrument to control the religious sphere and transform the sociology in line with the agenda of the hegemon political power in Turkey (Gözaydın 2008;Öktem 2012;Lord 2018;Adak 2021); or discusses how it is utilized by the current Turkish regime in foreign relations/policy to increase soft-power (Öztürk and Sözeri 2018); or the Diyanet's activities through the lenses of desecularization (Adak 2021).…”