Ergün Yildirim’s research while affiliated with Dumlupinar University and other places

This paper aims to explore the symbolic construction of the Turkish nationalism during the early Republican period in order to trace the origins of the anti-global nationalism in today's Turkey. It discusses the symbolic bases of the Turkish nationalism by going back to early years of the modern Republic. We identified three main components of the Turkish nationalism in this period: history, geography, and language. They are symbolically constructed within a nationalist perspective. The founders of the Republic and the ideologists of the Turkish nationalism hoped this to serve two purposes. One was to establish the bases of realizing the unity of the Turkish nations. The other, perhaps the most important, purpose was to prove that the Turks were an advanced and civil nation during the course of history, and to respond the Western pressures of disruption, defeat, invasion and exclusion (e.g., the Western labels of barbarian Turks, backward Muslims). The main argument in this study is that the Turkish national identity tried to co-exist with, and to join, the modern Western civilization by placing geography, history and language in a symbolic context and in accordance with the idea that it determines national interests as a part of business of corporations and key factor of managers within the international competitive environment. In this context, the Turkish history was interpreted as the source of human civilization and the Central Asia and Anatolia were the home of human civilization while the Turkish language was viewed as the origin of human languages. By doing so, they aimed to repel the claims of backwardness and barbarity and tried to introduce the national identity as an integral part of the national culture having great impact on a process of negotiations.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) has become an effective and highly dynamic force in Turkish politics. The short time span between its sudden birth and its rise to power, as well as its remarkable achievements in economic and social reforms as part of the process towards European integration, has drawn a lot of attention to the party. It is important to investigate the circumstances in which the party was born, the interests it represents, and the political space it is likely to fill. In order to do that, the AKP will be first analyzed by an approach based on the argument that political parties, identities, and discourses do not develop independently from political, societal, and historical realities through which new threats, opportunities, interests, and knowledge are formed. Second, it will be argued that political parties have their own momentum and dynamism in terms of their historical continuity and the socialization of their leaders and adherents. Turkey, despite the continuity of its historical memory, is undergoing a radical social transformation. By interpreting the AKP in the context of these transformations, a representative picture of its dynamic and contextual (deterministic) existence can be drawn out. The article concludes that the AKP is neither a political design of its leaders and conditions, nor is it a political becoming understood and shaped by public perceptions and expectations; it is both.