Master Thesis Defense: Erdem Kayserilioğlu
Beyond “the people”: Formation of Ulusalcılık in the Populist Discourse of the AKP
Erdem Kayserilioğlu
Kültürel Çalışmalar, M.Sc. Thesis, 2015
Thesis Jury
Banu Karaca (Thesis Supervisor), Sibel Irzık, Barış Mücen
Date &Time: June,29th , 2015 – 14:00
Place: Karaköy Minerva Han
Abstract
Over the last ten years, discussions on “Ulusalcılık” have become a major topic of debate in Turkish politics. A range of political actors, among them those who position themselves as liberals, nationalists (ülkücüler) as well as different incarnations of the political left, have tried to capture the current stance of ‘ulusalcılık’ in different ways with reference to certain political, social and cultural events of the past decade. Despite its often noted ill-definedness, the term ‘ulusalcılık’ has nonetheless found a place in the discursive political space. According to its use in dominant political discourse, which has been appropriated by the governing AKP as well as its media supporters, ‘ulusalcılık’ has been defined as a neo-Kemalist nationalist movement that reflects statist status quo reactions and cultural elitism of middle class secularist groups. While those civil organizations that call themselves ‘Ulusalcı’ are quite few in actual numbers and vary ideologically, the populist discourse of the AKP has gradually cast the ‘Ulusalcı’ phenomenon as antithetical of that of ‘the people’ (‘millet’); as the suppressive elite that attempts to exert power over the ‘real people of Turkey’. This study aims to understand the phenomenon of ‘Ulusalcılık’ from the perspective of populist discursive formations which are articulated under the AKP governent. Focusing on the period from 2007 to 2013, this study argues that ‘ulusalcılık’ became a strong reference point in the metonymic (re)articulation of the AKP’s populist discourse which binds certain facets of “status-quo vs. people (millet)” antagonism.