Book contents
- Creating the Desired Citizen
- Creating the Desired Citizen
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Anxious Nation and Its Ambivalent Westernism
- Part I Kemalism and Its Desired, Undesired, Tolerated Citizens
- 2 The Rise and Consolidation of the Kemalist Hegemony
- 3 Kemalism’s Desired Citizens
- 4 Kemalism’s Undesired Citizens
- 5 Creating Kemalism’s Tolerated Citizens via the Diyanet
- Part II Emergence of the Counter-Hegemony: Erdoğanism
- Part III Creating Erdoğanism’s Desired Citizens via Popular Culture and Education
- Part IV Erdoğanism’s Undesired Citizens
- Part V Creating Erdoğanism’s Tolerated Citizens via the Diyanet
- Book part
- Glossary
- References
- Index
2 - The Rise and Consolidation of the Kemalist Hegemony
from Part I - Kemalism and Its Desired, Undesired, Tolerated Citizens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2021
- Creating the Desired Citizen
- Creating the Desired Citizen
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Anxious Nation and Its Ambivalent Westernism
- Part I Kemalism and Its Desired, Undesired, Tolerated Citizens
- 2 The Rise and Consolidation of the Kemalist Hegemony
- 3 Kemalism’s Desired Citizens
- 4 Kemalism’s Undesired Citizens
- 5 Creating Kemalism’s Tolerated Citizens via the Diyanet
- Part II Emergence of the Counter-Hegemony: Erdoğanism
- Part III Creating Erdoğanism’s Desired Citizens via Popular Culture and Education
- Part IV Erdoğanism’s Undesired Citizens
- Part V Creating Erdoğanism’s Tolerated Citizens via the Diyanet
- Book part
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter starts with a historical background of the Kemalist hegemonic paradigm, starting with the late Ottoman period. It argues that Turkish secularist nationalists and Islamists emerged due to their different explanations for the internal and external causes of the Ottoman decline. The secularist nationalist narrative of the Young Turks who ruled the Empire between 1908 and 1918, was later incorporated into Kemalist ideology following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. This ideology shaped state thinking until the early 2000s despite transitioning to a multiparty political system in 1950. After discussing different variants of Kemalism, the chapter discusses how the Kemalist elite guaranteed the continuation of their hegemony by locking in their privileges into the 1960 Constitution and creating a dual tutelage system with anti-majoritarian institutions such as the Senate, the Constitutional Court and the National Security Council, whose decisions had to be implemented by the governments. These institutions were in control of high politics issues that were all securitised to the level of existential importance for the nation. Thus, the politicians were not allowed to modify the secularist Muslim nationalist identity of the state, the creation of the desired citizens project, state–Islam relations, Diyanet’s status, homogenisation policies and the discrimination of minorities.
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- Creating the Desired CitizenIdeology, State and Islam in Turkey, pp. 41 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021