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Over the past two decades, human geneticists have substantially embraced the concept of "biogeographical ancestry" to account for the racial, ethnic, and linguistic categories they use to analyze and interpret genetic difference. Understanding the ongoing role of these categories in human genetic research therefore requires attention to geneticists' representations of geography, particularly the geographic maps they use to illustrate gene distribution and migration. This article examines how the methods and imagery of international genetic geography and its major evolutionary narratives have reinforced or refashioned nationalist practices of geography in the Middle East. Geneticists simultaneously conceptualize the region's physical space as both a historical "crossroads" of human migration and the birthplace of distinct gene sequences and civilizations, alternately blurring and sharpening the boundaries between Europe and Asia. Focusing on genetic research in Turkey and Iran, this paper analyzes how geneticists draw and interpret geographic maps of the region while selectively erasing or highlighting state borders. These genetic maps negotiate between the idealized aims of international projects to reconstruct human evolutionary history, and the reality of practicing science under the constraints of nationstate politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the victory of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey's 2023 presidential election, the role of fear‐oriented populist nationalism in Turkish politics, and the implications of the results for society. It argues that Turkey faces a deep moral and social crisis rather than a mere political problem. The article explores the sociocultural origins of polarization, as competing communities with few shared values contribute to divisions. It also analyzes the formation and ideologies of the People's Alliance and the Nation Alliance, the two major blocs involved in the 2023 elections, providing insights into their visions for Turkey. Last, the article scrutinizes the cult of the strongman, the widespread use of nationalism and religion, the utilization of state resources by Erdoğan's administration, and the influence of media—largely controlled by Erdoğan—on public opinion. This includes investigating the impact of alternative truths and narratives on the electoral process. The analysis highlights the deep‐rooted moral bankruptcy Turkey faces in the third decade of Erdoğan's rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populism and nationalism have been described as major threats to democracy. But ambiguities linger over their conceptual boundaries and overlaps. This article develops a typology of nationalist narratives to historically situate the recent global rise of populist nationalism. Specifically, we identify three common types of historical experience with empire that have shaped contemporary expressions of nationalism by populist leaders: imperial power, where a nation's forerunner was the leading polity in a regional or global empire; imperial subject, where a nation was ruled and dominated by an imperial power, and imperial holdout, where a nation battled off imperial encroachments with relative success. Collective memories of these divergent imperial experiences are associated with three distinct types of nationalist narratives today: restorative nationalism in former imperial powers, redemptive nationalism in former imperial subjects, and retentive nationalism in former imperial holdouts. We illustrate this typology in three major cases of twenty-first-century populism: Turkey under Erdogan, the Philippines under Duterte, and Thailand under Thaksin. We tentatively contend that restorative nationalism is an especially likely conduit for greater political disruptions at home and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 18th century, the Enlightenment, which arose and grew in Western Europe, spread out in a short time and made way for political, economical and social changes firstly in the whole of Europe and then in the world. While the new type of thought system, based upon mentality and science of the Enlightenment, spread across various communities through cultural and commercial lines, the Greeks under Ottoman rule were the first and the most effected by the recent ideas in comparison with other communities in the empire. The commercial and cultural links which the Greeks established with Europe especially by means of their collaterals, who settled much earlier in Western Europe, facilitated the transferring of the Enlightenment movement both towards the Greek mainland and the western shores of Anatolia, which had been a frequent destination for European commerce. The ideas of the Enlightenment spread to the Greeks through education. The modernist Greek colleges, which were founded in this period and rejected the conventional educational method, began to transmit the secular and liberal ideas of the Enlightenment to the Greek world. One of these modernist colleges was founded at the beginning of the 19th century in Ayvalık, which almost wholly consisted of Orthodox Greeks and was a major commercial centre after İzmir in Western Anatolia. This educational institution, named Academy of Kydonies (Academy of Ayvalık), was established and survived with the support of the Greek community in Ayvalık. The college, by carrying the ideas of the Enlightenment left a mark not only on the Greeks of Ayvalık but also on the whole Greek world, also took an initiative role in sprouting nationalist ideas among the Greeks and undertook the mission of building an ethnical identity. For those reasons, Ayvalık, as a commercial and a cultural centre of the Greeks of Anatolia, and the Academy of Kydonies played a significant part in the process of building the Greek nation. In this study, which was written using Greek resources, the contribution of the educational institutions to the establishment process of Greek national identity was analyzed in the context of the Academy of Kydonies and the impact of the Academy's mission and ideas over the rise and spread of Greek nationalism in Western Anatolia was discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to understand the relationship between borders and identity, nationalism, and citizenship. The role and function of the borders in the expression of the identity; how the nationalist and etatist identities have been planned on the borders; what kind of a meaning is attributed to the borders by the nation-state through the citizenship design; and where the position of the people living on the borders is while the security of the borders is provided, are the fundamental questions of the research. In this study, in-depth interviews have been had with 6 people, who live in Muratlı Village located on the border of Turkey and Georgia, within the context of the qualitative research method. In the survey, it is seen that the border; is one of the ways of identity expression; contributes to the construction of the sense of belonging among the people living on the borders; embraces their social values; and puts the inter-societal relations in order. It has been understood that one of the identificatory and supplementary factors, the borders, are enshrined by the locals living on the borders not only because their nationalist and etatist identities have been planned by the borders but also because their starting and end points are determined by the same borders. Moreover, it is concluded that the borders are one of the important building blocks of the plan of citizenship by a nation-state, also the people living on the borders are law-abiding. Furthermore, they show loyalty in guarding the borders which shows that they gained a citizenship identity. It is revealed that not only the state but also the locals feel responsible for the protection of the borders. Therefore, these locals accept themselves as the border guards of the state. All these results of the survey show that the borders have features enabling a close relationship between the borders and identities; further, this relationship covers nationalism, etatism, and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the nationalist attempt of Turkey to create an ethnically and linguistically homogenous population initiated a long process that has resulted in widespread repression, abuse of power, harassment and discrimination on ethnic grounds. Topics include The Kurd descendant and Durkheim inspired Turkish thinker Ziya Gökalp (1876-1924) regarded as the brains behind the other ideological current.

This article deals with the Islamist movement and its ideology throughout the process of modernization and analyzes the political discourse of the Islamists about a world of consumption and the Islamic lifestyle. The article depicts the course of the Islamist political discourse from the beginning. The political discourse of the Islamists showed variations depending on the changing domestic and foreign conjunctions. Developed through a defensive understanding in the final period of the Ottoman State, the discourse of the Islamist movement underwent further changes in the following periods, which was influenced by the internal conditions of the country and developments outside. As the Islamist movement has always adapted to modern political life, political and intellectual changes in the modern period caused the Islamist discourse to change politically and acquire an appropriate language for the new situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper unpacks the ideas in the poem 'Pull Down My Statues' by Süleyman Apaydın, to examine some common descriptors in use about modern Turkey. Taking his inspiration from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Apaydın ponders the success of Atatürk's vision, based on the idea of a secular/sacred divide. Combining this with the way travel in Turkey is heavily promoted using the same themes, I explore how this divide, with its underlying connotations of West versus East and modernity versus tradition (as found in Turkey's Ottoman past), is applied to Turkish identity. Turks are commonly portrayed as a homogenous people only differentiated by their degree of religiosity, but I argue that this analysis is too simplistic. Turkish identity has never been based on a single clear cut model, and this is becoming obvious as more traditional Islamic ways of life are being reworked by new forms of Islam based on capitalism. Consequently, although it is important to acknowledge Turkey's past, looking to history for a way to steer through the complexities of the present is no longer useful or even relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report from a February 4-5, 2016 workshop in Munich, Germany on the history of naming held by the Czech and Slovakian history research department at the Collegium Carolinum college and the historiography department of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München university. Topics of presentations delivered included 19th-century legislation governing the naming of Jewish descendants, legislation regarding the languages in Bolzano, Italy, and the alleged role of language in Turkish nationalism.

El artículo discurre sobre las razones posibles que incitaron el genocidio armenio de 1915-1923 por el Imperio Otomano. El autor comenta sobre la prevalencia de nacionalismo de los otomanas así como el sentido de xenofobia ante los armenios. También se considera la cuestión del genocidio como un acto de limpieza étnica o un evento premeditado.

This article examines the process of development of the political left since its inception in Turkey in a context when the republic was established as a nation state and 1917 October Revolution. It looks at how the movement has been transformed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and with the changes in domestic politics. The historical process of the Turkish left is divided into three eras: The first from the beginning of the republic to the 1960s; the second from 1960 to 1980; and the third from 1980 to the present day. In this era, the left has not had that organized structure and influence as in the second era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the prospects of Turkey moving toward authoritarian form of government under Turkish political party Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, referencing the country's political history and nationalism from 2002 through 2014. The Turkish government's response to the protests at Gezi Park in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey in 2013 is discussed. The relationship between Islam and state in Turkey is also discussed.

This essay interprets the Gezi Park protests that began as a local resistance to government plans to level a public park but quickly escalated into a national outburst against government policies. How did the local events receive endorsements from different communities with otherwise ideological and cultural conflicts? This paper argues that political disenfranchisement intersected with society's aspirations with regard to dichotomies between conservatism and secularism, localisation and globalisation, and nationalism and majoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Folklore is a scientific branch that comes out from Europe. Basically the first term folklore studies in Turkey, i.e. recognition and acceptance of the discipline, benefitted from European experience and guidance. This situation can be clearly seen in the first articles related to folklore term. In this article, the role of the foreign folklorists in Turkish folklore, how they benefitted from “being a foreigner” and what they changed in Turkish folklore through their studies are discussed. Considering large numbers of foreign folklorists, who study on Turkish folklore, are preferred to handle in chronological order. Thus, the studies of the folklorists extending from Ignác Kunόs who conduct field works in Anatolia in the era of Ottoman State to Belá Bartόk, Wolfram Eberhard and Warren S. Walker are investigated. The preference of selecting foreign folklorists according to chronological order is due to understand the changes and transformations more clearly in Turkish folklore history. Primarily, foreign folklorists helped Turkish researchers to increase their interest towards oral culture, in other words, to explore Turkish folklore. “The method problem” arising with the recognition of folklore discipline solved through translations of foreign folklorists’ studies and sharing their experiences. From this study it is found out that foreign folklorists, working in different universities in Turkey, carried out researches based on “raw data and analysis” through realizing field works on Turkish folklore and analysing these data based on the theory and tendency of the interested period. It is determined that, the perception of foreign folklorists as the mediators for introducing Turkish culture and folklore to foreign countries become more clear in the last terms of Turkish folklore history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

İt’s a fact that nationalism is an important source of motivation in the appearance of folklore as a self-contained branch of science. While the folklore studies are completing it’s first year in Turkey when the relationship between the folklore and nationalism, it’s understood that folklore has a different structure from the west where it is instutionalised. This is because the folklore that drive the emergence of the ıdea of nationalism and the development of the west and Turkey showing different ways. Together with the geographical discoveries, colonical movements, nationalism and appearance of the nation states in the west, the ıdea of nationalism which is rooted in the west, capitalism and globalization progress in the tradition has given way to the folklore studies. In the west, the recognition of the emerging interest, the awareness of public information then has led the process of self-recognition. However, the idea of nationalism in the west, the situation with the economic expansion has caused folklore studies to reach beyond the borders. In the west, the political strategies of folklore studies as a means of nationalism fed back turned to the purpose of recognition of the other one. Orientalism of this process has emerged as the most systematic form. In Turkey, the ıdea of nationalism was born and developed in the axis of folklore studies. However, since nationalism in Turkey has emerged as a reflex of self-preservation, it hasn’t been turned into motive to dominate the other. The framework will be examined within the scope of this study and the relationship between folklore and nationalism will be tried to be compared with the west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of Kurdish tribes during the Turkish Independence War (1918-1922). It shows that despite various manipulations orchestrated by the British government, certain Kurdish groups based in Istanbul refused to collaborate with the British against the Ottoman Empire and thus did not follow a separatist policy. This article is reviewed along the Turkish-British Struggle in the national competition, the national movement in Kurdistan; they are used to describe how the tool they neutralize. During the continuing cutthroat competition, most of the Kurds did not become an instrument to all kinds of British policies. British did not manage to have the Kurds rebel along their imperial interests even though they manipulated the independence of Arabs, Armenian nationalism and Zionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A report is offered from an October 11-13, 2012 conference on the history of the Balkan region of eastern Europe on the 100th anniversary on the Balkan Wars. Topics of discussion included the role of the persecution of Muslim Turks in the rise of Turkish nationalism, Russo-Serbian diplomacy in the war, and the history of pan-Slavic social engineering.

The article discusses the relationship between nationalism and religion in the context of martyrdom in Turkey. It provides evaluation of the expression of grieving mothers who lost their soldier sons in armed conflict and their acceptance of the nationalist discourse of martyrdom based on national security of the country. It also mentions the initiative of legislators to create national security policies through the use of mother of martyr's grief.

The article presents an overview of the Ottoman Empire's ethnic cleansing of its Armenians during the World War I era and notes the author's view that Turkey's current ruling Justice and Development Party government is unlikely to acknowledge the country's crimes against humanity. The development of Armenian nationalism in the Empire's Turkish Armenian region and the Armenian nationalists' escalating violence against Ottoman rule which led to the mass deportations and massacres are discussed. The article notes that many of the displaced Armenians were sold in the white slave market or forced to work at hard labor jobs with little compensation. The Young Turks regime, prosecuted for the atrocities after the war, was followed by the Turkish republic which renounced Ottoman imperialism.

The article discusses Turkey's political, social, and religious history from the perspective that the country is not a democratic, secular nation-state because Turkish leaders have focused on Muslim supersessionism since the Ottoman Empire era began in 1288. The article notes Muslim supersessionism, a radical form of nationalism based on Islamic hegemony and the idea that all citizens should want to belong to a Turkish "race," was a driving force behind the development of the Young Turks organization and Kemalist political doctrine. Ethnic cleansing, the Armenian genocide, the Greek massacres, and the government's efforts to expel Christians and Jews from Istanbul, Turkey in 1955 are topics in the discussion. Other topics include Cyprus, Islamization, and Turkification.

The Kurds were late to the idea of nationalism in the 20th century, and when the borders were drawn in the region they became the largest stateless nation in the world, divided mainly between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. In an unlikely period when hope was fading, a Kurdistan regional government in Iraq was born as the former Iraqi regime was weakened after the first Gulf War and the subsequent no-fly zone. Two decades on, the region has become more assertive and been making many new friends, largely because of its newfound wealth, its influence in post-Saddam Iraq, and its stability when compared with the rest of Iraq. Oil has been a curse for the Kurds and Iraq as a whole, but now the Kurds appear to have found a way to use its resources for economic development, ensuring that the Kurdistan region remains stable and can establish itself as a self-governing and influential entity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Syrian immigrants in Argentina responded to the intersection of transnational politics and nascent nationalisms between 1900 and 1922. In particular, it studies the role of Syrian intellectuals in Argentina in advocating a variety of political allegiances that changed over time as their homelands suffered a series of intense political transformations during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The emergence of Syrian and Lebanese ethnic identities as well as an Arab racialised identity was the product of distinct political programmes circulating in the Levant and among the Syrian émigré communities in the Americas, threatening to undermine the immigrant colony's sense of community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines racist attitudes toward Atatürk and Kemalism from the 1930s to the 1960s. Liberal, leftist and conservative-Islamist critics of republican Turkey’s founder and his policies have contributed to a widely shared image that, even if Kemalism was not essentially racist, the Kemalist approach to religious and ethnic minorities could hardly be described as egalitarian. Thus one is taken by surprise to uncover a parallel layer of virulent racist criticism, hidden under the deposit of decades of anti-Kemalist discourse. The most important ideologue of racism in Turkey, Nihâl Atsız, and his circle attacked Atatürk’s leadership, condemned Turkey’s foreign policy, and particularly the appeasement policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, and, most importantly, ridiculed Kemalist attempts at building a civic nation model in the early republican era. Turkish racists never considered Atatürk and the Kemalists as fellow nationalists; on the contrary, the research for this article shows that racists questioned their nationalist credentials and accused Kemalists of being cosmopolitans. The acrimonious relationship between the racists and the Kemalist establishment can be taken as an example of how the latter oscillated between a western, democratic orientation and an inward-looking, xenophobic worldview, providing us, therefore, with a more complicated and multi-faceted picture of Kemalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One feature of the Second Constitutional Era (1908-1918), starting the declaration of freedom in 10 July 1324 / 1908, was the emergence of new associations and societies, new ideas, new newspapers and magazines. The Turkish Nationalists, herald of a new and modern public opinion, was but one example of these communities. A group of them founded Turkish Homeland Community in 31 August 1911 and published three journals: Türk Yurdu, Türk Sözü ve Halka Doğru. Ziya Gökalp, Yusuf Akçura, Ahmed Ağaoğlu, famous writers of the last magazine, aspired to create consciousness of populism. According to them, Ottoman social order was divided in to two different sections along the axis of the elites and the ordinary people. These differences and gaps between the two groups could be overcome only through the convergence of the two groups. The populism of Halka Doğru magazine was not independent or socialist, but it had a nationalist and Anatolianist content. In this respect, in their jargon 'people' meant the Turks, not the Ottoman society at large. Besides, the aforementioned populism was under the influence of romantic sentiments on the one hand, while it was quite rational on the other: It did not refrain from criticizing the flaws of the Turkish people. As a result, Halka Doğru populism will leave its legacy about some ideological findings to Republican populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the politics and history of Cyprus, focusing on its division between Turkish Cypriots in the North and Greek Cypriots in the South. It comments on the attempted coup d’état in 1974 that aimed to overthrow the government and annex Cyprus to Greece, and the subsequent invasion by Turkish forces. The author reflects on Cyprus' European Union (EU) membership and Turkey's prospects for EU membership. Other topics include international mediation, the prospect of reunification, and the influence of nationalism.

In the wake of Turkey's EU candidacy and the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Turkey's Kurdish question has drawn international attention. Due to previous data limitations, ours is the first article to analyze what explains anti-Kurdish beliefs in Turkey using nationally representative survey data. Through descriptive analyses and partial proportional odds models of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey (2002), we examine the extent and sources of these beliefs. We find high levels of anti-Kurdish beliefs in Turkey, but little evidence of group competition/material interests shaping these beliefs; rather, nationalism, secularism, and, somewhat surprisingly, favorable evaluations of globalization better explain anti-Kurdish beliefs. Although broad processes of social-dominance orientation and authoritarianism may be factors working in the background, anti-Kurdish beliefs are better explained by the peculiar case of modernization in Turkey and these anti-Kurdish beliefs may be different from negative beliefs about other minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study that examines the most salient neo-nationalism in Turkey. It highlights the controversial Ergenekon affair due to its relevance of ulusalcilik to Turkish politics. It adds that the rise of ulusalcilik was the most characterized fruit of the transformation of the nationalism in the country wherein the plethora was aimed to counter the democratic reform process while reaping the opportunities of globalization and modernization.

The connection between modernization and nationalism is still controversial for so many people. What kind of relationship could nationalism, which is including sublethal dosen romanticism, and modernization, which is called that it basically aims to put rationalism into daily practices, have? The nationalist thought, which has emerged as a last option for conserving the state and the progress of Ottoman-Turkish modernization isochronicly, accrued with solidarist-corporatist conceiving and then enhanced a highly paranoid perception against all resistant or outstander components why they objected the monolithic social structure that had offered. In this study we aimed to deal with the problems of Turkish westernization, those are based on continuity, novelty and the status of state, and also the nationalism between two wings of Turkish modernization (Jadeedism-Quadeemism)with the effects of this separation on Turkish political culture. Concludes we gained are that we have no single integral modernization but some various modernizations, we have no integral nationalism but some various nationalisms and we have no integral feel of belonging for any civilization yet but have strongly ambivalenced among some various civilizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anatolianism, is an idea that formed by nationalistic approaches which supported by social and political conditions. Anatolinists who consider themselves as more realistc comparing to Pro Turkics, believe that reconstrcution period of the societies can help the progress in mich better way with certain social dynamics. In order to happen, real ideas which is derived from daily life dynamics is needed more than utopias. Hilmi Ziya Ulken is one of the biggest names of the intellectuals who think that way. He considers the epopes which are one of the richiest form of anonymus litetarature, as best way to undestand the society and best tool to express the ideas. The epopes are very special products that both maket he people reliaze the value of it and become resources for the progress in modern literature. With these ideas, Hilmi Ziya had paid very special attention to the epopes and followed the researches made on this subject. He also suported the people around him who can write an epope, besides even himself, attempted to write some... In this research, Hilmi Ziya's special attention to the epopes and his writing attempts are subjected... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the rise of anti-American nationalism in Turkey. While Turkish public opinion has developed strong views against a set of foreign policies furthered by the United States, recent findings allude to the development of an emerging anti-US bias in large segments of Turkish society. The deterioration of the US image in Turkey could be considered a result of the recent US involvement in the Middle East, as well as socio-political shifts inherent to Turkey's democratization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of Turkish nationhood after the founding of the Republic has been evaluated and labelled very differently by various scholars. The classical view paralleled the official representation of Republican policies in describing Turkish nationhood as being based on a civic and territorial understanding of nationality. More recent and much more critical scholarship, which enjoys a near-hegemonic position in the study of Turkish nationalism today, claims that the official definition of Turkish nationhood has a clearly identifiable mono-ethnic orientation, manifest in a series of policies and institutions. This article argues that the definition of Turkish nationhood as manifest in state policies is neither territorial nor mono-ethnic, but rather ironically for the adamantly secular Turkish republic, the definition of Turkish nationhood is mono-religious and anti-ethnic, in striking continuity with the Islamic millet under the Ottoman Empire. The reason critical scholars perceive Turkish nationhood as mono-ethnic might stem from the dichotomous view of nationalisms as civic versus ethnic, a dichotomy that has recently been repudiated by some of its erstwhile proponents. Supremacy of the religious over ethnic categories in Turkey, as a historical legacy of the Ottoman millet system, might be applicable to most post-Ottoman states in the Islamic Middle East and North Africa, in contrast to the interplay of ethnicity and religion in Western Europe. This view of Turkish nationhood is confirmed by a dozen interviews that the author conducted with members of the political and intellectual elite of different ideological orientations in Turkey. It is then demonstrated how the new efforts at reformulating modern Turkish identity with reference to Ottoman and Islamic conceptions lead to new inclusion-exclusion dynamics with the Kurds and the Alevis, suggesting that a truly inclusive reformulation has to follow secular and territorial principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The AK Party's chronic 'political insecurity' may have passed a threshold as the ruling party resurfaces as an actor taking advantage of its pro-European Union sentiments to begin a 'grand negotiation' with Turkey's thus-far publicly shunned Kurdish leaders after decades of bloodshed. This new window of opportunity could not have emerged without the explosion of the Ergenekon incident, which has offered a persuasive critique of the closed, dark, intolerant and secret communities friendly with the military bureaucracy and state officials but insidiously devoted to destroying the government. In the post-Ergenekon era, the new democratic opening represents a significant departure from a military solution to the Kurdish issue which has blocked civilian imaginations by declaring the Kurdish identity demands as a security threat to the officially proscribed Turkish identity. The real issue at stake now for the AK Party government is a redefinition of the locus and space where the phenomenon of real political power takes place in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I build a theory of European Union (EU) expansion using Social Identity Theory. The theory proposes that the development of a national identity in relation to Europe is the most significant contributing factor to a policy to support/oppose expanding the EU to include applicant countries. According to the theory, strength of identity—whether more national or European—is the key variable in explaining the policy toward applicant countries. As a preliminary exploration of the theory, I look at why some decision-makers within EU countries support Turkey’s accession while others do not. The identities among top decision-makers within Britain, Germany, and France are used to examine the policy preferences regarding Turkey’s bid for membership into the EU during these three recent progressions: the recognition of Turkey as a candidate country in 1999, the development of a timeline for full membership in 2002, and the beginning of accession negotiations in 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article seeks to explore whether there is evidence based on a survey of Belgian, German, Lithuanian and Polish elites that there is a common European identity or whether distinct European identities are emerging along the "new-old" dividing line between European Union (EU) states. Elites' perception of three potential external threats to the cohesion of the EU are investigated and include the inclusion of Turkey to the EU, the close relationships between some EU countries and the U.S., and the interference of Russia in European affairs. Individual-level factors such as elite left-right self-identification, different visions of the role of the EU, and national identity, are examined to determine how they shape perceptions and affect the formation of distinct European identities.

The article discusses how nationalist ideologies of Panturkism and Panislam, which together make Panturanism, influenced the foreign policies of the Ottoman Empire towards Russia in the early 20th century. It describes the rise of ethnic, religious, and national identities in the Ottoman empire, the Panturanist desire to reunite with Muslims and ethnic brethren in Russian Turkestan, and the factors leading to the decision to invade Turkestan. The author argues that nationalistic Panturanism was not a causative factor in geopolitical and military decisions in the Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman claims to universality - embodied in Ottoman imperialism, Ottoman Islam, and Ottoman cosmopolitanism - were undermined and ultimately shattered by the encounter with ascendant Europe. Following near-dismemberment after the First World War, Mustafa Kemal categorically rejected Ottoman universalism in favour of a non-irredentist, secularist nationalism. His brand of Turkish particularism shaped national identity and foreign policy for much of the twentieth century. Since the 1980s, however, a growing number of Turks have begun to revisit the Ottoman past. They are drawn to one or another of the three dimensions of Ottoman universalism which they use to make alternative national and foreign policy claims. This study provides a brief, schematic account of the later years of the Ottoman Empire and early years of the Turkish Republic in order to trace the metamorphosis of Ottoman universalism into Turkish particularism. It then explores how Kemalists, Islamists, liberals, and ultranationalists appropriate Ottoman universalism today in their attempts to redefine national identity and foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Turkey's participation in the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was held in England. The socioeconomic aspects associated with this international exhibition include the balance of Western influence and traditional values in Turkey, modernization and industrialization, competition for commercial products and markets, and the relationship of artistic design to industry. The author indicates that the 1851 exhibition influenced Turkish commercial policy, industrial regulations, and national identity. The role of Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid I in advancing Turkey's economic development and social change is mentioned.

En paralelo a la negociación conflictiva en torno a la definición y al sentimiento de la nación a nivel estratégico, las repercusiones de la globalización, y sobre todo de las negociaciones con la Unión Europea, complican la cuestión de las fronteras y, por consiguiente, la cuestión de la unidad en el contexto turco ("siempre en peligro", según las elites nacionalistas-kemalistas). El discurso nacionalista se consume a nivel popular pero, más que simple consumo o pura producción estratégica, se constituye como una producción de diferentes nacionalismos en las tácticas de la vida cotidiana. Este artículo aborda de este modo las nuevas producciones nacionalistas, profundizando en las tácticas que van de la supervivencia a la subversión o nuevos ritos religiosos en una situación de incertidumbres y de ambivalencias propiciadas por la globalización, por un nuevo encuentro con Occidente y por la desaparición de las fronteras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallèlement à la négociation conflictuelle sur la définition et le sentiment de la nation au niveau stratégique, les répercussions de la globalisation et, surtout, les négociations avec l'Union européenne, compliquent dans le contexte turc la question des frontières et, par conséquent, la question de l'unité (« toujours en danger», d'après les élites nationales-kémalistes). Le discours nationaliste est consommé au niveau populaire mais, plutôt qu'une simple consommation ou une production stratégique pure, il constitue une production de différents nationalismes dans les tactiques de la vie quotidienne. Cet article adresse ainsi les nouvelles productions nationalistes, en approfondissant dans les tactiques qui vont de la survie à la subversion ou à de nouveaux rites religieux dans une situation d'incertitude et d'ambivalence rendue propice par la globalisation, par une nouvelle rencontre avec l'Occident et par la disparition des frontières [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kurdish question has been a source of domestic conflict since the inception of the Turkish Republic. It has been one of the mostly securitized issues in domestic politics. Despite the continuation of the securitizing agenda, and years of denial by the state, in the mid-1990s alternative discourses on the cultural rights of the Kurds started to emerge. The AK Party government departed from previous attitudes by repeatedly emphasizing the Kurds' right to express their culture and identity. This article analyzes the developments regarding the Kurdish issue during the AK Party government and asks whether they can be seen as a desecuritization process. The article argues that although there are significant signs of desecuritization, Turkey continues to swing between forces, agendas, and actors of securitization and desecuritization when it comes to the Kurdish issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the challenges of Kurdish nationalism within Turkey and of Kurdish nationalist movements emanating from Iraq during the period between the 22 July 2007 elections and the crises of March 2008. In particular the article discusses the following developments: First, the domestic political scene, particularly the consequences of the 22 July elections and the surprisingly strong wins of AKP deputies in the southeast and east of Turkey versus the relatively poor showing of the DTP; second, the efforts of the Turkish Armed Forces and businessmen's associations to ameliorate economic grievances in the southeast; and third, the increase in PKK terror activities and the TAF's subsequent air and land attacks on northern Iraq. The conclusion addresses the implications of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq for Turkish-Kurdish relations, and discusses the trade-offs of different instruments utilized by Turkey to resolve the Kurdish problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how the socio-religious minority of Turkish Alevis, in the course of the Alevi revival in the last two decades, adopted the language of religion as a means of empowerment in Turkey and Germany. In both cases, formations of Alevi identity in religious terms are encouraged by the specific discourses regarding legitimate formulations of identity. In Turkey, the question of Alevi recognition as a group legitimately different from Sunni Islam is entangled in ideological and material conflicts evolving around competing interpretations of Turkish nationalism, Islam, and laicism. Alevis are compelled to articulate their demands within this ideological framework if they want to advance their cause. In Germany, enunciations of Alevi identity likewise adjust to the local religion discourse, and here often transgress the languages of Islam and Turkish nationalism. Though configured differently, both secular and national contexts encourage Alevis to standardize and objectify Alevism using the language and grammar of religion. This reformulation of Alevism is accompanied by a restructuring of traditional knowledge and practice in secularist terms, distinguishing between religious and secular spaces, languages, and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo ofrece una amplia reseña del libro "A Shameful Act. The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility," escrito por Taner Akçam. El libro enfoca en las decisiones y acciones de la clase política otomana que causaron el genocidio armenio. Se examinan varios aspectos que contribuyeron al genocidio, como el nacionalismo e imperialismo.

This paper challenges the view that the AKP is "an Islamist party" and "hardly a democratic opening". It puts forward the argument that the AKP's recent election victory represents a triumph over (1) inward-looking, anti-EU, ultra-Turkish nationalism, (2) unwarranted military interference in politics, (3) selfish Kemalist desires to protect their own privileged position, and 4) misguided secular fears of a secret Islamic agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to evaluate the forces behind the Turkish-Greek rapprochement, its prospects and its limitations. In the first part, through an analysis of the route from détente to rapprochement, the case for sustainable changes in the foreign policies of the two countries will be made, from confrontation to cooperation. In the second part, the effect of Europeanization on the foreign policies of Greece and Turkey and on their bilateral disputes will be discussed, with a view to presenting the overall contribution of the EU to bilateral affairs in the way of opportunities offered and constraints set. Finally, in the third and fourth parts it is argued that obstacles to rapprochement still remain, particularly in the form of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the present time, there are no clear outcomes in Turkey's European Union (EU) accession process. By the end of the two years following the rise of the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the government in 2002, Turkey's accession process entered into a stalemate. Potent political opposition to the Turkish candidacy in Europe has escalated, despite a staunch Turkish political commitment since 1999 to meet the Copenhagen Criteria for admission. In this article, we argue that Turkey's EU accession process has contributed to opening political spaces for Islamism and ethno-nationalism in the country, ironically producing societal and political forces undermining Turkish membership. We inquire first into the practical reasons obstructing Turkey's membership to the Union and second into the societal and political implications of the continuation of the bleak possibility of EU membership for Turkey. As far as the latter is considered, our focus is limited to an analysis of the politicization and institutionalization of the ethnic and Islamist conservative politics in Turkey within the process of "liberal democracy." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the decline of nationalism in Turkey. A survey conducted by the Eurobarometer in Turkey found out that only 43 percent has a positive image of the European Union showing that it falls from 60 percent six months earlier. Nationalist protests and campaigns are increasing which targets the liberal or left-wing intellectuals and the Kurds. The Nationalist Action Party (NAP) are even blamed by right-wing groups for the alleged passivity and betrayal of Turkish nationalism. Recreation of the racist Turkism which distance itself between Islam and Turkism could result to radicalization or moderation can reshape the form conventional dialectic of radical right and center-right politics in Turkey.

The article focuses on Said Halim Pasha whose writings have been revived as well as interest in himself. Said Halim Pasha was a prince of the Egyptian royal family, a thoughtful writer and scholar on topics that agitate Middle East. He also occupies many ministerial positions in the highest echelons of the Ottoman administration during First World War. Said Halim took a tough look at the roots of his civilization and sought refuge in the supra-national appeal of Islam during the time nationalisms of Muslim and non-Muslim groups were tearing the Empire apart. His works also are applicable and current in scope and content.

The article discusses the different crisis faced by Turkey. This includes conflict between republicanism and democracy, majoritarian and consensual democracy, French and American versions of secularism and civic and ethnic nationalism. This conflict of political norms, values and symbols has the potential to stop the consolidation of Turkish democracy. The main problem in Turkey is the radical polarization of society, which is an outcome of Turkey's political ethos of creating a secular and national society through the means of the state.