Work for the Nation, Obey the State, Praise the Ummah: Turkey’s Government-oriented Youth Organizations in Cultivating a New Nation

Abstract

Modern Turkey's emergence was a nationalist struggle that aimed to cultivate youth as secular citizens. Almost a century later, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) attempts to re-model youth through a new ethno-religious nationalist project. This study argues that different from the secular Kemalist social engineering that dominated the state's youth policy for decades, the AKP relies on the intermediary agency of Islamist-conservative and government-oriented civil society to shape young generations and convey ethno-religious nationalism to youth. Seventeen governmentoriented youth organizations illustrate the extent of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) quest for a new national identity and cultural hegemony within the broader context of Turkey's steady decline into an authoritarian regime. The findings-based on original fieldwork conducted between October 2017-June 2019-demonstrate youth organizations' country-wide grassroots engagement in four categories: indoctrination, extra-curricular training, service provision in the education sector, and street activism and humanitarian work. Their self-defined goals, ideological roots and grassroots reach inject a new disciplinary ethos and statist values in youth towards shaping them as Muslim and nationalist 'ideal citizens'. The study offers insights on the societal aspects of authoritarian regime building and cautions that crafting 'successful' authoritarian regimes is not a one-way process that takes place only at the formal institutional level. A broad range of societal players and coalitions, including civil society, play a critical role in authoritarian regime building.Ethnopolitics, 2019 https://doi.

Why Do Populist Governments Change Their Policies: Evidence from Turkey

“…Second, the AKP government heavily invested in (Sunni) religious organizations to make religion more visible in both public and private spheres. In this regard, the government increased the budget of Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs) and Imam-Hatip Schools (Adak, 2021) and endorsed religious vaqfs such as Ensar and Türgev as well as the youth organizations (Yabancı, 2021).…”

Civil Society and Latent Mobilisation Under Authoritarian Neoliberal Governance

“…GONGOs carry out projects tailored for targeted social groups, particularly for youth and women, such as jobs and skills training on popular and contemporary subjects, the provision of aid, counselling and dormitories, and opportunities for entrepreneurship linked to access to microcredits. Packaged as 'voluntarism' and 'charity' embedded in the Turkish culture, several organisations also provide cash and in-kind benefits to the poor and other disadvantaged groups, such as refugees (Yabancı, 2019b). Government-oriented civil society has also become a key sector that also offers jobs, income, social mobility, and even housing to their volunteers and members.…”

“…Government-oriented civil society has also become a key sector that also offers jobs, income, social mobility, and even housing to their volunteers and members. As a result, a self-reproducing system of clientelism within civil society has become a major factor for the appeal of GONGOs in Turkey (Yabancı, 2016(Yabancı, , 2019b. In this state-civil society relationship, civil society has become the state's trusted partner that shares the burden of welfare provision, reflecting the major neoliberal conviction that the state should not be responsible for the provision of essential social aid and 'poverty can be eradicated through private entrepreneurship and work' (Eder, 2010, p. 179).…”

“…To fulfil their aspiration of creating the future generation of AKP supporters, they seek to cultivate national pride and pro-government sentiments among the youth and hence 'mould youngsters' self-perceptions, identities, political attitudes, and loyalties' (Yabancı, 2019b, p. 28). To this end, they have benefited from the privatisation of education and the vacuum left in the supply of education-related services like dormitories, extracurricular courses, and scholarships after the crackdown on the Gülen community (Kandiyoti & Emanet, 2017;Yabancı, 2019b). These organisations attract youth from primary school age to early career professionals through private schools, scholarships, summer camps, dorms, and extracurricular training activities.…”

“…These organisations attract youth from primary school age to early career professionals through private schools, scholarships, summer camps, dorms, and extracurricular training activities. When they engage in these activities and socialise within the circles of government-oriented youth organisations, youngsters become exposed to nationalist-conservative indoctrination, a revisionist reading of history that celebrates irredentist and imperialist ideas in line with the AKP's neo-Ottomanist project and its reflections on youth policy (Chapter 7 in this volume; Gençkal-Eroler, 2019; Tokdogan, 2018;Yabancı, 2019b). Becoming a part of the inner circle of a nepotistic and politicised public jobs market is also an appealing factor among youngsters who join these organisations where they reach networking and job opportunities (Yabancı, 2019b).…”