Turkey’s ambivalent self: ontological insecurity in ‘Kemalism’ versus ‘Erdoğanism’

Çapan, Zeynep Gülşah; Zarakol, Ayşe

doi:10.1080/09557571.2019.1589419

Cited by 45 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…The embracing of such interpretations of the Friday sermons within such a pluralistic setting can lead to tensions between believers and secularists and in the interreligious domain as well as to tensions among world religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It can also lead to extreme hostility towards traditional interpretative communities and towards all forms of rationalism, intellectualism, and mysticism in Islam (Gülsah Çapan and Zarakol 2019;Gürlesin 2018;Reddig 2011). The increasing tensions between Turks and Kurds after the sermon read at the beginning of 'The Peace Spring Operation', the demonising and exclusion of the Gülen movement, in line with Ankara's policy, and the lack of emphasis on the sense of belonging to Dutch society during the sermons strengthen concerns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Political and Religious Implications of Turkish Civil Religion in The Netherlands: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ISN Friday Sermons

Gürlesin

2023

Religions

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Civil religion encompasses the implicit religious values of a nation manifested through public rituals, symbols, and ceremonies at significant locations and on special occasions. The emergence of new religious symbolisms reflects the evolving structure of religious authority. The Islamic Foundation Netherlands (Islamitische Stichting Nederland (ISN)), the largest mosque umbrella organization in the Netherlands, holds significant influence in shaping the religious beliefs and ethical standards of the Turkish–Dutch Muslim community. Furthermore, the ISN possesses the ability to construct and authenticate discourses that redefine the conceptualization of the ‘self’ and the ‘other.’ In early 2017, following increased criticism of sermons written by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (PRA/Diyanet) in the Netherlands, the ISN, as the Dutch branch of Diyanet, started composing its own Friday sermons in both Turkish and Dutch. This article aims to examine the discursive features of the Friday sermons delivered between 1 January 2017 and 1 January 2023 and explore their connection to civil religion. The study employs Fairclough’s three-dimensional critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework and Wodak’s discourse–historical approach (DHA) to analyze the Friday sermons. The findings reveal that the civil religious discourses advanced by the ISN possess both unifying and divisive potential. However, the collected empirical evidence suggests that state-sponsored civil religion, emphasizing Turkish nationalism and Islamism, dominates the liberal and pluralistic form of civil religion.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Political and Religious Implications of Turkish Civil Religion in The Netherlands: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ISN Friday Sermons

Gürlesin

2023

Religions

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“…Creating a homogenous nation was the priority of the founding Kemalist elite in Turkey, to the detriment of the diverse cultural context of the Ottoman Empire in which the republic was established. The new Turkish national identity, emerging from the birth of the republic, was built on ontological insecurity (Rumelili and Celik 2017;Çapan and Zarakol 2019;Yilmaz 2021) rather than shared values. Turkey's foreign policy outlook suffered from severe insecurity and anxiety.…”

Section: Three Pillars Of Authoritarianism: Legitimation Co-optation ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Authoritarian Use of Religion to Delegitimize and Securitize the Opposition

2023

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This article examines the use of religion by an authoritarian ruling party to delegitimize political opposition through securitization. The case study presented is the ruling AKP in Turkey, which initially promised to desecuritize the Kurdish issue to co-opt the Kurdish opposition but eventually resorted to the demonization narratives and repressive policies of the secular Turkish state; however, in addition to labeling the Kurdish opposition as terrorists, the AKP deployed religion to legitimize its repressive policies on religious grounds. The Turkish case shows that not in legitimizing (via desecuritization), but in delegitimizing opposition (via securitization) religion has been the main tool deployed by the ruling party. This finding needs to be tested in other contexts and cases. Additionally, since this paper only focuses on the narrative of the AKP’s religious delegitimization, further research is needed to measure its efficacy and impact.

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“…Turkish political life, much like in other countries, evolves and transforms through a set of critical junctures. Such junctures might matter even more in countries that suffer from certain crises of identity and ontological insecurity (Hintz, 2018; Gülsah and Zarakol 2019). In this article, we argue that we can better understand the increasing authoritarianism of the AK Party through its securitisation moves that were triggered at critical moments of ontological insecurity.…”

Section: Critical Junctures Of Securitisation: Reframing Institutions...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Junctures of Securitisation: The Case of the AK Party in Turkey

Sandal

Öztürk

2022

Alternatives: Global, Local, Political

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Authoritarian leaders try to create an environment conducive to the maintenance of their own ontological security. In this study, we advance a theory of tripartite securitization marked by critical junctures that shed light on how authoritarian actors establish a sense of security for themselves when they govern. Using elite interviews with actors from Turkey’s different political parties, we argue that the three major steps towards authoritarianism in Turkey involved restructuring core institutions and ‘cleansing’ them of the perceived hostile elements; doubling down on securitising existing internal and external ‘enemy’ identities; and securitising rivals that cannot be co-opted in the political process. This tripartite securitization starts with what we call ‘desecuritisation of the self’ in cases where the party in power itself was once the target of securitising acts. We trace how tripartite securitisation has unfolded in Turkey under the AK Party government, and we identify three critical junctures associated with this securitisation process: The Ergenekon and Balyoz Trials, the KCK Trials and the 2016 Failed Coup Attempt.

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Turkey’s ambivalent self: ontological insecurity in ‘Kemalism’ versus ‘Erdoğanism’

Cited by 45 publications

References 64 publications

Understanding the Political and Religious Implications of Turkish Civil Religion in The Netherlands: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ISN Friday Sermons

Understanding the Political and Religious Implications of Turkish Civil Religion in The Netherlands: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ISN Friday Sermons

Authoritarian Use of Religion to Delegitimize and Securitize the Opposition

Critical Junctures of Securitisation: The Case of the AK Party in Turkey

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