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This article examines oral traditions in the discourse of Kurdish intellectuals between 1920s and 1940s. Through a critical and textual analysis of three main publications, namely Hawar [cry for help] (1932–1943), Ronahî [light] (1941–1943), and Roja Nû [new day] (1943 − 1946), it discusses the different ways in which oral traditions were seen as instrumental for crafting national selves, advancing literacy, and disseminating local histories. The article identifies the endeavours of Kurdish intellectuals as a form of romantic nationalism and approaches it within the theoretical framework of John Hutchinson's cultural nationalism. It shows that Kurdish intellectuals' interests in oral traditions were the outcome of complex, ideological positions and conditions, and that the cultural and the political were closely intertwined in their pursuits. Exploring those pursuits also informs us of the symbolic and political significance of expressive traditions in the contemporary cultural politics of Kurds in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between populism, nationalism and religion through evidence from Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule. The literature on the populism's rapport with nationalism has developed in isolation from the burgeoning theorization of populism-religion nexus. This study has a two-fold contribution. Theoretically, it advances a historical approach to deepen our understanding of the widespread appeal of contemporary populism. It argues that populism can capitalize on unique contextual fusions of religion and ethnic (secular) nationalism that originate from historical legacies and ideas of modern nation-building to (re)construct the antagonistic discourse dividing the society into two camps of 'the people' and 'the elites'. Empirically, by drawing upon discourse theory and empirical analysis of the AKP's public discourse, the study offers a nuanced approach to the AKP's much-debated stance on religion as an ideology versus instrument. Three areas are investigated to exemplify AKP's construction of populist dichotomy: a) ethnic and religious minorities, b) women, and c) youth. The analysis reveals that the AKP has built three different, and at times, contradictory articulations of 'people as underdogs', 'people as nation' and 'people as the ummah' against 'the secular elites', 'the enemies within' and 'the West', respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyprus has featured prominently on Turkey's foreign policy agenda in recent years. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has weaved this long-standing issue into a broader narrative of 'geographical imagination'. Cyprus policy has thus reflected the AKP's socio-political vision of a 'Yeni Türkiye' (New Turkey), first articulated nearly a decade ago, in which well-entrenched narratives about national identity and the Cyprus conflict are central. Against this backdrop, Cyprus has been leveraged in the twin interests of AKP survival (boosting incumbency through nationalist appeals) and Turkey's regional power aspirations. The present article offers a timely survey of Turkey's Cyprus policy over a 15-year period from 2002 (when the AKP rose to power) until the failure of the negotiation talks on Cyprus in Crans-Montana, Switzerland in July 2017. In so doing, the article charts the important continuities as well as the key markers of transition in Ankara's policy towards Cyprus under the AKP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a reflection on the distinctiveness and scope of the ideas of Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), who played a key role in the formation of the ideology of the Turkish Republic created in 1923. Gökalp is generally cast by interpreters as a ‘Westernist’ or ‘modernist’ nationalist thinker, like many other thinkers in late developing societies, whose chief concern was the establishment of a modern Turkish nation-state and who, therefore, tried to combine Western knowledge with the culture of his own society. Contrary to received wisdom, I argue that Gökalp developed not just a model of modernity befitting Muslim Turks but also a distinctive general theory of social life, according to which the cultures of all societies are hybrid, i.e. blends of other (past and present) cultures. If this is correct, then Gökalp’s social thought is more than a mere specimen of late nationalist ideologies; it is applicable to all forms of social life just as much as the ideas of the European social theorists he cited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a comprehensive reading of the 1912–1914 issues of the journalTurkish Homeland, the highbrow intellectualist periodical of the Turkist intellectuals and the ruling Committee of Union and Progress, this article argues that sublime Turkishness envisaged by the Young Turks can be construed as a character build-up. The article also examines how history was utilized as an arsenal from where the sublime ‘Turkish character’ was extracted in a decade in which interest towards Turkic history burgeoned, arguing that valiant Turkic heroes from the glorious Turkic past were discovered or rediscovered to stand out as exemplary men and epitomes of incorruptibleness inspiring the new youth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The surge of environmental protest in Turkey has been interpreted as ‘above politics’ activism that strengthens civil society, fosters alternative expressions of identity, and creates new forms of agency outside the state. This article contends that any analysis of the way environmentalism unfolds in Turkey must take into account identity dynamics and the power the state has over these dynamics. Environmental activism seldom remains purely ‘issue-based’, despite the claims and desires of many activists themselves that their protests be ‘above politics’ as a ‘people’s movement’. Drawing on ethnographic and other methods in the study of environmental protest against a gas power plant on the Black Sea coast, this article shows how activists are caught in a dilemma which forces them to tread very carefully if they are to avoid accusations of being separatists or betrayers of the fatherland. Thus, environmental conflicts in Turkey can only be understood within the context of national identity- and party-politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The argument of this paper is that the new foreign policy orientation of Turkey under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government is a constitutive component of a new nationalist project, constructed and carried out by the AKP over the last decade. The article expounds the ways in which the AKP has reformulated the notions of nation, national history, homeland and national interest and demonstrates the role foreign policy has played in this reformulation. Our point of departure will be the patterns we have observed in the statements and political practices of the AKP government and its officials, particularly the incumbent minister of foreign affairs Ahmet Davutoğlu, whose book, Strategic Depth, presents a more systematic explanation of the major principles and assertions of AKP nationalism and foreign policy. We will also argue that after the Gezi protests in June 2013 this new conception of nation and nationalism has faced with a deep crisis, which has also exacerbated the problem of pursuing an ambitious foreign policy strategy in international arena. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article aims to examine how the Turkish census measures, classifies and interprets the languages spoken in Turkey. By examining the non-standardised relationship between ‘mother tongue’, ‘domestic language’ and ‘ethnicity’, the article analyses the ongoing and dynamic milieu that surrounds the fixed questions and clear-cut classifications of data. This article argues that the ethnic measurement is not a ‘fixed’ measurement, because the wording of the linguistic question and the data categorisation as well as the interpretation of the data has been changing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]