AKP's neo-conservatism and politics of otherness in Europe-Turkey relations

2012-03-01
This study uncovers the neo-conservative "style of thought" informing the ideology of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP). The AKP's politico-cultural strategy in pursuing Turkey's goal of full membership to the EU is constituted on this ideological ground. Based on critical constructivism, this article argues that the AKP constitutes a domestic-foreign policy nexus of change characterized by a neo-conservative "style of thought" that aims to redefine the identity of Turkey. Along this line of politics, Europe appears as a politico-cultural space, as an ideational structure, enabling and limiting the AKP to act as a political and cultural agent. While the AKP adopts and sublimates the position of the "other" in the ideational structure of Europe, it reconstitutes the identity and interests of Turkey through neo-conservative ideas. Both are mutually reinforcing.
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TURKEY

Suggestions

AKP S CHRONIC IMPASSE: THE STRUGGLE FOR CULTURAL POWER
CANER, EMRE; Alpan, Başak Zeynep; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2022-12-26)
In this thesis, I examine the reasons why the AKP, the ruling party of Turkey for 20 consecutive years, failed to establish its cultural power despite having political power. For this purpose, I trace how the ‘legitimate culture’ is determined along with the source and the main purpose of popular culture from the perspective of Bourdieu, who offers an extremely comprehensive set of concepts related to the ‘cultural field’, in order to analyze the ongoing cultural power struggle in Turkey. I examine the reas...
The Right wing conservative politicians in Turkey : ideological and political imaginations
Suveren, Yaşar; Şen, Mustafa; Department of Sociology (2013)
This thesis aims to describe and analyze the politicians who belong the right-wing political conservative traditions in Turkey by the mediation of their understanding and mentality. In this framework, the study primarily intends to investigate and analyze their perceptions of political and ideological imaginations. Turkish right seems to have a quite heterogeneous structure. While the recognition of the heterogeneity embodied around the political-institutional structuring is crucial to understand the Turkis...
Turkey and its relation to the European Union from a radical nationalist perspective: the Nationalist Action Party from the early 1990’s until the present
Korkusuz, Şermin; Özdalga, Elisabeth; Department of Sociology (2008)
The objective of this study is to analyse the discourse (from 1990s onwards) of the radical nationalist perspective about Turkey-EU relations. The EU is discussed as an actor within the globalization process. Therefore, in a broader context, the study presents the situation of the radical nationalist perspective in Turkey within the globalization process. In the study, the Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi/MHP (Nationalist Action Party) has been selected as the political representative of radical nationalism in Tu...
Turkey and the Balkans: bringing the Europeanisation/ De-Europeanisation nexus into question
Alpan, Başak Zeynep; Ozturk, Ahmet Erdi (2022-01-01)
This article is about the main framework and the rationale of the special issue, which deals with Turkey's increasing ethno-religious, pragmatic and complicated involvement and activism in the Balkans since 2002, under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi - AKP). The main focus of the Issue is how the intersectionality between domestic and foreign policy has played an important role in Turkey's recent relations with the Balkan countries and how the Europeanization process influences...
New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey? Gender Policy in the Age of AKP
Cosar, Simten; Yegenoglu, Metin (2011-01-01)
This article addresses the gender policies of the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi-Justice and Development Party) government in Turkey. It is argued that AKP's period in government has been marked by the emergence of a new mode of patriarchy. The article aims at a tentative conceptualisation of this new mode of patriarchy in terms of neoliberal, nationalist and religious discourses in comparison with the already existing republican and liberal modes of patriarchy.
Citation Formats
K. Ertuğrul, “AKP’s neo-conservatism and politics of otherness in Europe-Turkey relations,” NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TURKEY, pp. 157–186, 2012, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/53490.