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MIDDLE EASTERNIZATION OF TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY: A POPULIST

LOGIC OF ARTICULATION

HAL L GÜRHANLI Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland halil.gurhanli@helsinki.fi

ABSTRACT Despite its Islamist credentials and tense relations with the institutions of

secular order, the Justice and Development Party (JDP) found a single party government in

Turkey in 2002 and has kept its rule going until now. Unlike in the domestic political arena,

the party’s past did not pose any problem for its Western counterparts initially. However, as

Turkey’s pace of progress towards the EU membership began to decelerate and the JDP

government recently took a series of problematic steps in the region, a major concern has

arisen in the West on whether the JDP is trying to shift Turkey’s axis. Contrary to the

approaches that consider it either as a result of the EU’s modus operandi towards Turkey or

the JDP’s Neo-Ottomanist ambitions, this paper argues that the reason behind the recent

Middle Easternization of Turkish foreign policy is the populist logic which characterizes the

JDP’s discourse since the day it was found.

Keywords: Justice and Development Party, Turkey, populism, European Union.

The Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) landslide victory in the November 2002

elections in Turkey had been considered a success of democracy and liberalization by many

scholars, politicians, and the European Union (EU).1 This general optimism was based on the

observation that the JDP cadres seemed much more determinate and enthusiastic about the

Europeanization cause than their predecessors. It was paradoxical that the Kemalist ideal of

becoming a part of Europe needed democratic reforms that would weaken the influence of

this ideology’s strongholds, including the military and the principle of laïcité.2 What is more,

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these reforms had to be realized by the ex-Islamists who were ousted from power in 1997 by

the military.3 Coming a long way from being considered as an internal threat to the secular

Republic, the JDP cadres became the main actors of transformation with their strong reliance

on the Europeanization cause.

Yet the JDP’s hard-line secularist opponents in Turkey (Republican People’s Party

(RPP) and so-called guardians of the Kemalist regime: Turkish Armed Forces (TAF),

Presidency, and Judiciary) remained suspicious, arguing that the party was attempting to

instrumentalize the EU accession process for its autocratic, religiously oriented aims.4 The

party’s past credentials, however, did not pose a problem for its European counterparts who

believed in the sincerity of JDP’s efforts towards the membership target. Against domestic

criticisms, they backed up the JDP government in many instances and their reflection on the

party remained positive until the pace of progress towards the EU membership began to

decelerate considerably after Turkey received a definite date to start accession negotiation on

17 December 2004. Worries about Turkey’s “departing from the EU track” started to be

expressed. Worries turned into sheer panic when, in addition to her reluctance to pursue the

accession negotiations further, Turkey started to engage in close relationships with Hamas

and Iran, and adopted a clear anti-Israeli position following Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo an’s

rebuke against Israeli President Shimon Peres during the World Economic Forum in January

2009.5

Contrary to the approaches that consider this transformation either as a result of the

EU’s modus operandi towards Turkey6 or the JDP government’s Neo-Ottomanist ambitions,7

this paper aims to understand the JDP phenomenon in Turkey, and to disseminate this

knowledge for a better understanding of recent foreign policy choices Turkey has made.

Instead of merely describing the so-called “Middle Easternization” of Turkey’s foreign

policy, this article seeks to reveal its logic in the everyday sense of the word.8 Relying on a

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recent understanding of populism as a political logic, and examining the JDP’s political

discourse, this paper claims that, as the 2011 general elections approach, the JDP aims to

redefine the Turkish people through its recent turn towards the Middle East by introducing a

new common denominator for “us” and “them” and thus create an antagonistic polarization

within the electorate, excluding those who oppose the party’s rule as the supporters of a

highly vague figure of the other.

In the first part, recent remarkable incidences indicating a Middle-Easternization as

well as some earlier developments pointing a diversion from Europeanization track in

Turkish foreign policy will be explained. Then, in the second part, theoretical framework of

what is meant by populism will be explained. Based on this framework, the last section of the

article will investigate the shared populist logic behind this initial diversion from Europe and

subsequent leaning towards the Middle East in Turkish foreign policy.

1. Grounds for Western Concerns

On 17 July 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo an and four of his ministers

served as casket bearers at the funeral of Osman Nami Osmano lu who was the last surviving

grandson of Sultan Abdülhamit II—ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1909.9 In a

country where even the most subtle of gestures are overloaded with meaning, it is difficult to

imagine a clearer symbol of how the JDP sees itself and Turkey’s place in the world. When

he lifted the coffin onto his shoulder, Erdo an seemed to be demonstrating that he was not

only carrying the physical remains of one of the Ottomans but identifying his party as the

bearer of their political legacy, both domestically and in foreign policy.

1.1 Dangerous Liaisons

If one considers such a scene in perspective with the highly controversial political steps

Turkey has been taking recently, the Western concerns over Turkey’s so-called “drifting

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apart” from Europe do not seem entirely unjustified. The first alarming incidence was the

official visit by the Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir to Turkey in August 2008,

when the International Criminal Court had alleged him for war crimes, crimes against

humanity and genocide in Darfur10. Notwithstanding vast reactions from the EU and many

international human rights organizations in the course of this first visit, the JDP government

and President Abdullah Gül did not see any problem inviting Al-Bashir for the second time to

Turkey in November 2009 for a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference

(OIC). As the ICC had issued an arrest warrant for him on 4 March 2009 on counts of war

crimes and crimes against humanity, Al-Bashir retrained from leaving his country despite

Erdo an’s supportive stance.11 Questioning the ICC verdict, Erdo an also implausibly

declared that ‘Muslims cannot commit genocide because murder is forbidden by the

Qur’an’.12

Also in January 2009, Erdo an rebuked Israeli President Shimon Peres during a debate

at the World Economic Forum for the Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians. Erdo an

stormed off the forum after a heated debate with President Peres, accusing him of turning

Gaza into an ‘open air prison’ and ‘knowing very well how to kill.’13 Particularly in the

aftermath of the Israeli military assault on the flotilla aiming to break the blockage over

Gaza, the JDP cadres entirely abandoned the traditional policy of touting Turkey as a possible

honest broker between Israel and the Arab countries, and, instead, increased the level of

party’s anti-Israeli discourse. So much so that Erdo an began to portray himself as the

principal advocate of Palestinian rights, claiming that he was acting as ‘the conscience of

humanity’. In this atmosphere where the parents in Middle East name their newborn sons

after him14, contrary to the EU’s inclusion of it in the black-list of terrorist groups,15 Erdo an

declared an explicit support for Hamas, describing it as ‘a resistance group of their rightful

land.’16

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And, finally, the Western concerns reached the peak when the JDP government

declared its support for the Iranian nuclear enrichment program and acted upon it unilaterally.

Through early 2010, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto lu travelled frequently to

Teheran to try to brake a deal that would head off additional sanctions against Iran at the

United Nations (UN). On 17 May 2010, acting together with Brazil, Erdo an and Davuto lu

proudly announced that they had succeeded where others had failed and persuaded Iran to

agree to deal that would make additional sanctions unnecessary.17 But the deal fell far short

of the demands of the international community, not least because it did not require Teheran to

halt its uranium enrichment program. Erdo an and Davuto lu were furious when, on 9 June

2010, a package of additional sanctions against Iran was approved by the UN Security

Council, of which Turkey is currently a member. One day after the voting, speaking at a

meeting of the Turkish Arab Cooperation Forum in Istanbul, Davuto lu announced plans for

a free trade zone encompassing Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.18 Despite the fact that

Turkey is a member of the European Customs’ Union and for her to take part in such an

agreement for a customs union with third countries requires the EU’s approval, Davuto lu,

without even requesting such an approval, recently proclaimed that ‘the free trade zone is

likely to be formally announced at a summit in Istanbul in January 2011.’19

1.2 All Quiet in the Western Front

Current situation of the accession negotiations for Turkey’s EU membership does not

look promising either. In addition to those aforementioned steps indicating an unsettling

eastward movement in Turkish foreign policy from a European perspective, a perceptible

EU-fatigue has emerged in the JDP government since a definite days for opening of

accession negotiations was given to Turkey at the Brussels Summit on 17 December 2004.20

During its first two years in power, the JDP pushed through a battery of liberalizing

reforms, accelerating the efforts initiated by its predecessors to become a member of the EU.

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Having placed the membership target to the center of its political discourse as ‘the second

greatest project in Turkish history after the proclamation of Republic,’21 the JDP leaders

started a series of whistle-stop visits to EU member countries even before the party officially

formed the government. Only ten days after the elections on 3 November 2002, Erdo an

went to Rome and continued with visits to London, Brussels, Dublin and, finally, Strasbourg

where he met with Pat Cox, the then president of the European Parliament (EP). After the

JDP formed the government, speeding up of harmonization efforts was an utmost priority.

Six harmonization packages and several other major legislative reforms the JDP introduced

in the course of two years have expanded freedom of expression; abolished anti-terrorism

provisions that authorized punishment for verbal propaganda against the unity of state;

abolished the death penalty; established retrial rights for citizens whose court decisions are

overthrown by the European Court of Human Rights; allowed education and broadcasting in

the Kurdish language; curbed the military’s involvement in politics through a series of

changes made regarding the role and the structure of National Security Council; and ended

the intransigence of Turkish foreign policy towards the Cyprus question.22

According to the EP those reforms were simply ‘courageous and revolutionary.’23

Similarly, the European Council welcomed ‘these important steps taken by Turkey’ and

acknowledged ‘the determination of the new Turkish government.’24 On the grounds of these

further changes, at the Brussels Summit on 17 December 2004, the Council agreed to start

negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005.

However, as it is argued by Patton, in the period after 17 December 2004, the JDP

‘increasingly displayed signs of “reform fatigue”, hesitating to push hard for implementation

and enforcement of the rights-based reforms that it had so assertively legislated.’25 Especially

when it came to most crucial areas, such as the Cyprus issue and Kurdish minority problems,

which would require substantial changes, the JDP government seemed reluctant to show

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necessary efforts to deal with them.26 Once it had secured a date for the opening of accession

negotiations, Jenkins states:

[T]he JDP neither introduced any more reform packages nor attempted to ensure

the full implementation of the legislative amendments already passed. More

critically, it continued to refuse to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot

ships and planes. It seemed like the opening of accession negotiations represented

the end, rather than the beginning, of a process for the JDP. Over the next 15

months, the government failed either to introduce and substantive reforms or to

open its ports and airports to the Republic of Cyprus.27

Although Turkey had signed the additional protocol on the Customs Union expanding its

borders including Cyprus on 29 July 2005, Erdo an insisted on holding the traditional

Turkish position towards Cyprus, stating in mid-2006 that Turkey would ‘open neither its

ports nor airports to Cyprus unless the embargo over the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyrus

is revoked.’28

The same backward shift is also discernible in three other instances: the Kurdish issue,

the amendments to the Anti-Terror Law, and the discussions surrounding Article 301 of the

Penal Code. A few months before the beginning of accession negotiations, Erdo an had

apologized for the past mistakes committed by the state institutions while dealing with the

Kurdish issue and acknowledged that restrictions over the public expression of the Kurdish

identity are a part of the problem.29 Contrary to the expectations, this initial historical move

was not followed by any comprehensive policies offering social, economic and cultural

solutions to the problem. It seems, rather, like the JDP returned to the hard-line approach

which used to prevail in Turkish politics since the very beginning. As Menderes Ç nar puts:

the JDP has steadily aligned with the establishment and reduced the Kurdish issue

to a matter of armed separatism only, accused those who criticized the torture and

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political killings in the southeast of being the mouth-piece of the armed separatist

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and refused to meet with the co-chairman of the

pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) on the grounds that the DTP does

not recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization and condemn it.30

The JDP’s retreat from the reformation process can further be observed in the case of

amendments the party made to the Anti-Terror Law in June 2006. Giving up to the TAF’s

complaint that the army’s capability to fight against terrorism was dangerously curtailed by

the changes made in the harmonization packages,31 the JDP added several clauses to the

infamous Anti-Terror Law which made a wide-range of criminal offenses punishable as acts

of terrorism. Covering one’s face completely or partially during protests and demonstrations,

for instance, was turned into a crime carrying a punishment up to five years prison.32

Last but not least, throughout 2005 and 2006, 2838 people (including the Nobel Prize

winner novelist Orhan Pamuk and Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink33) were charged

with ‘defamation of Turkishness,’ under Article 301 of the Penal Code, which stipulated up

to three years in jail.34 The JDP government showed extraordinary resistance to keep the

article intact against all the pressure coming from public and the EU for its removal on the

grounds that it keeps freedom of expression under threat and violates the EU standards.35

Based on this steady and discernible slowing, and even retreat, in the JDP’s reformation

efforts during the period following the Brussels Summit, on 11 December 2006, EU leaders

announced that they suspended negotiations on eight of the thirty-five chapters of the

accession process. And since then the Europeanization process has been practically halted for

over four years. In the coming years, one would hear less and less the name EU uttered by the

members of JDP government in a positive manner.

2. Populism as a Consistent Logic

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There is a general tendency in the scholarly attempts to combine these two aspects of

the JDP’s recent foreign policy (increasing involvement in the Middle East and the gradual

deceleration in the EU membership process) in such a causal way that the first one is

considered as a result of the latter. According to this approach, the modus operandi of the

EU in the months following its decision to fix a date to open talks generated strong feelings

of resentment, despair, and humiliation in Turkey which made the JDP government “turn to

East”.36 Turkish public and government simply got the impression that their country was

treated as a beggar at Europe’s door and this feeling eventually led the country to search for

new realms of foreign relations where she would be taken more seriously and treated with

more respect. Through such indirect reference to the prevalence of “politics of emotions” (in

contrast to the “politics of reason”) in Turkey, it is usually concluded that the EU is guilty of

not showing enough sensitivity to the fragile, albeit irrational, points of Turkish political

psyche.

Another popular approach to make sense of these current developments is through so-

called Neo-Ottomanism.37 Recent eastward turn in Turkey’s foreign policy orientation is

explained this time with reference to the JDP’s aforementioned Islamist roots, in a fashion

that is strikingly similar to that of hard-line Kemalists in Turkey. Proponents of this view

argue that what is being observed lately in Turkish foreign policy is in fact only an overt

display of JDP’s Neo-Ottomanist agenda of gradually transforming Turkey into an Islamic

society and taking over the leadership role for Muslim countries. This agenda was kept

hidden until recently and finally unveiled once the party has reached the level of confidence

that it has established its rule over every conceivable realm of Turkish society. In fact, it is

claimed, it is possible to trace the ideological roots and strategy of this agenda all the way

back to the Islamist pasts of JDP’s leaders and the current Foreign Minister Davuto lu’s 2001

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book titled Strategic Depth, which lays the “guidelines” of JDP’s Neo-Ottomanism in the

realm of foreign policy.38

Although these two views seem different from one another, they both share an

underlying ontological assumption over rationality which can be called as positivist. This is

to say, while the first approach explains the recent shift in Turkey’s foreign policy orientation

with reference to the emotional/irrational sentiments of JDP government against the EU’s

modus operandi, the latter attains an extreme rationality to the JDP, whose recent shift is

understood as part of a highly elaborate master-plan for political domination that has been

finally unveiled when the right time has come. But what if, rather than being based on so-

called “irrational” feelings or “hidden agenda”, the JDP’s policy choices stem from an

ordinary, consistent and traceable line of thought?39 It is based on this fundamental inquiry

that this article points to the logic behind the JDP’s way of making politics which, contrary to

the general conviction, seems to be highly consistent—populism.

A recent understanding of populism disassociates it from being merely a ‘malfunction

of democracy’ or ‘having specific social bases, economic programs, issues and electorates.’40

Scholars such as Ernesto Laclau, Cas Mudde, Emilia Palonen, Daniele Albertazzi and

Duncan McDonnell share the definition of populism as an ideology which considers the

society separated into two antagonistic groups, the virtuous and homogeneous “pure people”

versus “the corrupt elite” and dangerous “others” who are together depicted as ‘depriving (or

attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and

voice.’41 Following Betz and Johnson, they further share the definition of ideology ‘as a

system of values and beliefs by which to make sense of the world, a way to provide answers

to essential political questions: what went wrong; who is to blame; and what is to be done to

reverse the situation’.42 It is in this respect, following Laclau, one can argue that populism

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simplifies political space, which is essentially infinitely heterogeneous with endless potential

pluralities,43 by introducing a constitutive divide between “us” and “them”:

At the heart of populist identification is an image of the fullness of the people,

which is always incomplete, achieved by the exclusion of an outside that can

never be fully vanquished. As Ernesto Laclau points out [...], populism depends

not only on a sense of internal homogeneity but also on a constitutive outside - a

threatening heterogeneity against which the identity is formed.[...] Political

battles between the “us and them” of populist politics involve struggles to fix and

unhinge the divides that constitute populist identities, and set up new political

frontiers.44

In these terms, “people” and “elite” , like all the other signifiers, can be argued to mean

almost anything. Rather than being pre-given, their connotations are contingent products of

articulatory practices. Populism, in this respect, is an ideology that considers the notion of

“the people” as its nodal point around which the entire field of political is constructed. And

populist politics is a constant struggle for hegemony over the meaning of “the people”.

Within a populist logic of articulation, although its identity is formed in a negative way

against “the elite”, “the people” become politically visible through the category of empty

signifier that refers to the phenomenon of one term, concept or slogan, starting to represent a

number of other ones.45 In other words, it is only when one particular signifier starts to

represent “the whole” we have a visible populist movement. As Laclau states:

The so-called “poverty” of the populist symbols is the condition of their political

efficacy - as their function is to bring to equivalential homogeneity a highly

heterogeneous reality, they can only do so on the basis of reducing to a minimum

their particularistic content. At the limit, this process reaches a point where the

homogenizing function is carried out by a pure name: the name of the leader.46

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Precise discursive function of the slogan “change” President Barrack Obama used during the

2009 election campaign in the US, for instance, can be understood in this particular way. The

word became almost entirely emptied out of any particular meaning and, yet, began to mean

everything those who were dissatisfied with the presidency of George W. Bush longed for—

from a series of relatively expectable demands (a stable economy, better healthcare and

education system, improved rights for ethnic, religious, sexual minorities etc.) to the point of

extreme (legalizing soft drugs).47

3. Construction of the New Turkish People

The JDP was found in August 2001, in an atmosphere of total chaos and despair

following ‘the worst economic crisis in Turkish history’.48 Due to intra-governmental

dissensions and persistent allegations of widespread corruption, coalition government of the

time had been entirely inefficient in dealing with the crisis and, therefore, lost its credibility

in the public.49 As a young new-comer to the political scene, the JDP introduced a radically

polarized, populist picture of Turkish politics as separated into two antagonistic groups: the

people and the elite. In line with the general populist tendency of elevating the name

“people” to the point of ultimate purity and righteousness,50 the JDP’s discourse usually

referred to this entity in excessively respectful terms. “The people” were not only the

supreme authority of power, they were also too virtuous, humble and patient to protest unless

they really need to. In Paul Taggart’s terms, “the people” of JDP were only ‘reluctantly

political’.51 However, if their sufferings became unbearable and they lost their patience,

people’s reaction would be strong yet infallibly just. They would punish those who were

responsible for their sufferings in almost a divine manner:

Our forethoughtful, supreme people who can make the best decision for

themselves are not going to buy the government’s excuses for running away from

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the elections. Our people will grade each accordingly. Their answer will slap

them in the face and bury them into the ballot box.52

As a general principle, JDP’s early discourse made no reference to the established

regime in Turkey as a problem. They were undoubtedly wary of its guardians: TAF,

presidency and judiciary. This was mainly because they had wisely learned from the mistakes

of their Islamist predecessors that it was simply suicidal to challenge these guardians openly

since ‘such politics would escalate the authoritarian style of the Kemalist secularist

establishment’.53 The party leaders were extremely careful to keep their criticism focused

solely on their remaining opponents and make it clear that they had no disagreement with the

official Kemalist regime per se. Opposing to the then PM Bülent Ecevit’s criticism that the

existence of a party found by ex-Islamists indicated a regime problem, for instance, Erdo an

insisted that there was ‘no regime problem in Turkey’. The only problem the country had was

‘the backward and outdated politics of Ecevit and the ones like him’.54 He also had a very

clear idea about what this politics was. In Erdo an’s own words, ‘those who think they have

the monopoly over the principles of the regime’ were abusing them ‘in order to maintain their

rotten status qua’. Contrary to what they claim, the elite were ‘neither secularists nor

republicans in modern terms’.55 What this statement meant in theoretical terms was that the

JDP was there to challenge the discursive hegemony of the established elite over the

founding principles of Turkey, not the status of those principles themselves. Unlike their

predecessors, the JDP refused to play the game of politics under the domination of traditional

elite who could alter the principles such as laïcité and republicanism as they wished and

instrumentalize them against their opponents. At one point, Erdo an got involved into a bit of

semantics himself and skillfully blended it into the JDP’s general populist discourse,

challenging the secularist elite’s discursive hegemony. In his reply to the standard criticism

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by Ecevit towards the JDP on the grounds that its founding cadres were largely Islamists and,

thus, against the republic, he stated that, instead, they were the ‘real republicans’:

We are on the roads of Anatolia for about three-four months now, getting

together with our businessmen, civil society leaders at special meetings, and with

our people who stop our convoy and welcome us. Regardless of winter, snow,

rain or storm, we toured the roads of Anatolia and we will keep on. This means

we are together with the people, those who are the “public” of res publica. In case

you have forgotten, let me remind you that it is because of this public whom you

have forsaken, you are called the Prime Minister of Republic and you do not

deserve it anymore.56

Having rejected the traditional secularist discourse that understood society as

antagonistically divided between progressive Kemalists and fundamentalist Islamists, JDP

introduced its own discourse as an alternative in this way. The real antagonism in Turkey was

between corrupted elite and virtuous people, and the JDP justified its emergence to the

political arena as a result of an inexorable urge to get their hands dirty in the name of this

virtuous “people”. In the figure of manipulating and power-thirsty elite, the party managed to

articulate a clear understanding of “them”, which, as mentioned above, is the indispensable

and constitutive outside of “us”, i.e. the people. However this is only half of the picture as far

as populist logic is concerned. What needs further investigation is the functioning of an

empty signifier in the JDP’s discourse and this is exactly where the name “EU” steps into the

scene.

3.1 Europe as the Ultimate Ideal

The EU is our obsession. Even though we all understand different things from the

EU membership, this obsession is what unifies us.57

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Turkey’s relationship with Europe and her quest to become part of Europe and later the

EU has been a long one. There had been a westernization process starting as early as late 18th

century in the Ottoman Empire. Yet it was only with the establishment of the Turkish

Republic in 1923 and Kemalist reforms that Turkey embarked upon a systematic and

profound modernization process. Atatürk defined his efforts to achieve a modern, secular and

western society as a process of catching up with contemporary civilization. This process was

itself manifested in the form of an aspiration to become part of Europe.58 Right from the early

days of the foundation of the Turkish republic, for Atatürk and his supporters the primary aim

was to see the country recognized as a respected European power.59 And this goal has been

persistently pursued by all the governments of Turkey throughout its history, albeit in slightly

different styles.

Formal institutional engagement of Turkey with Europe started when the government

applied for associate membership to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1959.

However, since then, every time Turkey seemed close enough to actually reach this eternal

goal, something unexpected came up and the process was delayed.60 The major breakthrough

for Turkey finally came in 1999 when the country was granted candidate status at Helsinki

Summit. Temporary cessation of the violence surrounding the Kurdish problem and the

formation of a new coalition government in April led by Ecevit opened the way for taking

steps towards improving democracy in the country. In early 2001 the Turkish parliament

adopted a series of critical amendments to the Turkish constitutions to facilitate political

reforms to meet the Copenhagen Criteria which were welcomed by the Commission.

However, the reform process somewhat slowed down in 2002 when Euroskeptics, including

the coalition partner MHP began to object to some of the reforms on the grounds that the EU

was a Christian club that would never admit Turkey as a member and that demanded reforms

aimed to no more than weaken Turkish national sovereignty and territorial integrity.61 When

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these intra-governmental dissensions combined with the ruinous outcomes of 2001 economic

crisis which government also failed to contain, the decision to hold an early election in

November 2002 was taken.

Although these repetitive failed attempts to officially become a part of Europe caused

widespread feelings of frustration, anger and disillusionment in public and government, the

ideal of Europe, with the historical importance attached to the name, has prevailed in Turkish

political psyche as the land where all the problems and difficulties of life have been

overcome.62 Such an idealization of Europe was accomplished not only through the official

Kemalist narrative that has practically carved it into the minds of generations during their

school years. It was also kept alive and well thanks to the Turkish immigrants in Europe who

increased frequency of their visits back to their Anatolian hometowns in the 1970s after

several years of working and saving.63 Their very appearance with their clothing, cars and

such, which symbolized they somehow “made-it”, as well as their narration of daily life in

Europe fed this ideal in the eyes of those they left behind. A significant portion of Turkish

popular culture in this period, from cinema to music, was based on these experiences and

kept the ideal alive while the immigrants were away. New luxurious dwellings were hastily

built in major cities and holiday towns specifically for the purchase of those immigrants,

standing as the permanent reminder of the same European dream.64 As a tragic note, one can

even remember the widespread exercise of parents in Anatolian towns who used to “prepare”

their teenage daughters for the summer when younger male immigrants came back to “pick”

suitable wives. In a climate of utter despair and hopelessness, Europe stood for the only

bright future for their children.

3.2 Europe’s Double Function

It is based on this persistent vitality of the European ideal in the formation of modern

Turkish identity that has kept the consecutive governments bashing the European door as

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‘they all want to succeed where the rest has failed’.65 However, a gradual regression in

Turkish governments’ readiness to take required steps towards the Europeanization is

discernible in this process. While in the first decades of the republic the scale and depth of

reformations the government introduced, and imposed, for the cause of Europeanization were

simply immense (they changed the entire structure of Turkish state and society including, but

not limited to, the dress code, alphabet, penal code, financial institutions and education

system), later attempts remained more or less at the formal level. Due to the almost endemic

existence of military coups and economic crises in Turkey, the civilian governments since the

early 1960s have remained rather occupied with the task of fighting for their very survival

and maintaining some sort of stability in the country.

It was only with the emergence of JDP, these two pressing elements (idealized Europe

as the ultimate target and struggle for the survival of civilian government) were combined

under the single term of “EU membership” in the party’s discourse. Firstly, in a way akin to

Obama’s “change” slogan, the concept of membership functioned as the empty signifier in

JDP’s early discourse. In an atmosphere of total economic collapse and political turmoil, and

based on the ideational status of Europe, membership meant everything the people longed

for—economic prosperity, political stability, democracy, religious and cultural freedom etc.

In Erdo an’s own speeches as well, this equalization of Europe with the development and

civilization was a permanent theme:

In this globalizing world, in order not to remain in the slums of development and

civilization, Turkey should join the EU. It is the place for Turkey to increase her

political, economic and administrative standards. If Turkey wants to find

comprehensive solutions to the administrative crisis caused by democratization

problems, there is no alternative to the EU.66

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The first issue our country needs to deal with is, of course, the EU. Only then the

problems of economy, education, social life, unemployment, and income

distribution can be solved by a potent crew.67

What is also worth noticing here is that the EU membership was elevated to being the

master formula to solve all of Turkey’s problems, no matter how deeply rooted they are, and

therefore considered as the absolute political priority in JDP’s discourse. In its 2002 Election

Declaration, the party explicitly stated that ‘Turkey’s membership to the EU is a natural

outcome of our country’s modernization process’. It is only through the steps taken towards

this goal the country could ‘maintain its existence on the international arena.’68 So it is

conceptualized as an indispensable precondition for not only Turkey’s development but also

for her very survival as a member of international community. In other words, the “EU

membership” in the JDP’s early discourse was a matter of life and death for Turkey.

Read in tandem with the JDP’s previously mentioned strategy of discursively

separating the official Kemalist ideology and its principles from the established elite and

targeting the latter as the “enemy of the people”, this clustering of multiple, initially

segregated demands under the single signifier of the EU membership is the final move

completing the JDP’s populist discourse. Thereafter, the JDP’s stance can be understood in

relatively clearer terms as exerting direct and ceaseless pressure over “the elite” and their

unwillingness to take necessary steps for the fulfillment of their shared demand, namely the

EU membership:

Even though the goals are so obvious in the framework of the Joint Membership

Paper, current government fails even to follow them and make any progress in the

area of structural reforms... But our people do not fail to notice that the

government is clearly afraid of the progress simply because it would break down

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their age-long reign in every corner of the state. The day is approaching when our

people will get rid of these parasites and start to rule again.69

The EU is constantly asking for the government to deal with the issues of

fundamental human rights and freedom. Have they done anything about the

religious freedom? No need for further explanation. Our people see at least as

much as we do and surely going to express their will in the elections.70

In addition to its function as an empty signifier which provided significant advantage

for the JDP to win 2002 election, the EU membership also served as a buffer zone, keeping

the JDP safe from a direct confrontation with the guardians of Kemalist establishment during

its first years in the office. As Burhanettin Duran puts, ‘it is certain that the JDP, more than

any other Turkish political party, regards international support as a fundamental factor in

attaining political legitimacy’.71 Relying heavily on the Kemalist ideal of “reaching the level

of civilized nations”, the JDP’s pro-EU stance enabled the party to ensure its position in

power without raising much discomfort within the establishment. In fact, the reforms

mentioned in the first part limiting the TAF’s effect in politics as well as the judiciary’s

sphere of influence could only be achieved with a justification as strong as the EU

membership. This was most vivid in the statement of General Hilmi Özkök, the then Chief of

General Staff, commenting on the proposed amendments: ’70% of the people want the EU

membership. Nobody can resist this kind of majority. We are ready to compromise and

undertake risks to harmonize with the EU values’.72

However, what the nature of Europeanization process after the opening of negotiations

requested from the JDP government was the exact opposite of its function in domestic

politics: a direct confrontation with the establishment. When the Council concluded that

Turkey fulfilled the Copenhagen Criteria to start the negotiations, the next step was the

implementation of previously passed legislations, including the recognition of Cyprus as a

20

legitimate diplomatic partner and finding a peaceful/democratic solution to the Kurdish

problem. These were all issues of extreme sensitivity, so-called “red lines”, within the

traditional Turkish national security understanding 73 and realizing those reforms the EU

asked was almost impossible without risking a direct confrontation with the guardians. Yet

this was exactly one of the main functions of the EU for the JDP government in the first

place: preventing a direct confrontation with the institutions of Kemalist establishment.

In addition to this, the JDP no longer held discursive hegemony over the name “EU

membership” as the master formula through which all of Turkey’s problems would be solved.

As the process got more concrete, as Tocci indicates, the public started to have a more

detailed, non-idealistic knowledge of the EU with all its imperfect sides and target of

membership looked further and further.74 ‘More internal discussions in this regard have taken

the romantic and ideational cloud off Turkey’s approach to the EU.’75 The membership

signifier could no longer stand for democracy, economic prosperity, freedom, security and

such at the same time. This is most vividly observed in the historic fall in Turkish public’s

support for the EU membership from 73% in 2004 to 38% in 2010.76

But the JDP initially tried to keep EU cause alive anyways, starting with a few,

relatively less alarming requirements such as the re-opening of the Greek Orthodox

Monastery in Istanbul. But even then, the reaction from the guardians and media was

immense as the Patriarchate was considered to be an important symbolic remnant of radical

expansionist project of Greater Greece and, thus, a threat to Turkish territorial integrity.77 So

the JDP left the process at a more or less frozen state indefinitely as the EU membership lost

its double function as the empty signifier and buffer zone against the establishment. JDP’s

“giving in” to the hard-liners’ demands in 2006 with regard to the Cyprus and Kurdish

problems can be explained, in this respect, as a result of this loss. The party simply could not

risk pursuing the same track in the absence of EU as an ideational entity. For the sake of

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government’s survival in power, the JDP took an increasingly defensive stance and, albeit

temporarily, yielded to the demands of the establishment.

3.3 A New Constitutive Other: Ergenekon, or the “Deep State”

Although the JDP initially managed to avoid a direct confrontation with the guardians

of regime by giving up to their behests after the EU membership lost its double function, a

clash became inevitable during the course of presidential election in April 2007 when the

party wanted to appoint one of its own members for this symbolically and politically

significant post.78 In fact, all three of those guardians got involved into process to preclude

such an outcome: Presidency, by releasing a statement that warned the public about the

negative socio-political outcomes of appointing someone with Islamist credentials as the

President79; TAF, by drafting a memorandum on its website a few hours after the JDP’s

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül won the parliamentary voting, that effectively threatened to

stage a coup if Gül had been officially appointed80; and judiciary, by blocking the election

process on the basis of a previously unknown requirement that a quorum of two-thirds of the

550 members of parliament had to participate in the vote. Facing the double threat of hung

parliament and coup d’état, the JDP government was left no choice but to call an early

general elections for 22 July 2007. Contrary to the expectations of guardians and the

opposition, the JDP won the election by even a greater landslide, receiving 46.6% of popular

vote, and Gül was formally elected President on 28 August. Bewildered and humiliated by

the electorate’s indifference to their warnings, guardians and opposition remained silent.

From this point onwards the story of Turkish domestic politics started to revolve around

a not-so-hidden duel between the JDP and the establishment. In darkest terms, both sides

accused each other with treason, espionage and conspiracies.81 The JDP, confident in its

recently refreshed popular support, has taken an unambiguously supportive stance behind two

extremely far-reaching legal investigations, Ergenekon and Balyoz, calling the process as the

22

‘cleaning of the century’.82 Investigations started in mid-2007 against a group of secular

ultranationalists, including many high level serving and retired military staff, who were

alleged of being members of a “deep state”, ‘vast terrorist organization which has penetrated

virtually every aspect of Turkish life and is committed to destabilizing and eventually

overthrowing the JDP government’.83 Since their inception, however, the cases have

mushroomed beyond all expectations and by the time of this writing the prosecution process

is expected to take several years more: in dozens of predominantly pre-dawn raids, hundreds

of suspects were detained and/or questioned, over three hundreds have been charged.84

Despite having uncovered some important information on wrongdoing on the part of some of

the accused, the process remains highly questionable in terms of its conduct and motives.

First of all, every arrest raid appeared to bag an increasingly unlikely set of suspects. The

arrests included, as Soner Ça aptay states, ‘not just the underworld figures, but also

journalists, military officers, businesspeople, judges and academics’ many of whom appeared

to have nothing in common except their political opposition to the JDP in particular and to

Islamic conservatism in general.85 Secondly, as noted by the Turkish Union of Bars, concerns

mounted as the suspects were held in detention for way over the legal limits (over a year in

some cases) without being formally charged, rendering the custody period a punitive one.86

There have been also legal criticisms over the evidence collection methods of the

investigations as they have been overwhelmingly based on wiretaps which, under the

informatics laws, renders the method itself illegal (as no such court order has been issued)

and the content unusable in court.87

Despite such problematic issues remain to surround the investigations and any

conclusive decision is yet to be reached in order to prove the existence of those alleged

entities, the process itself has fulfilled a crucial function in JDP’s discourse anyways:

constituting its new, and even more ambiguous other. In their analysis of right-wing populism

23

in America, Berlet and Lyons call this feature as ‘antielite conspiracism’ which they define as

a narrative that frames the enemy as the sinister elites who abuse their power from above and

are part of a vast insidious plot against the common good. Valorizing the scapegoater as a

hero for sounding the alarm, such a narrative tends to frame politics ‘in terms of a

transcendent struggle between Good and Evil.’88 Arguably the clearest example of this

narrative can be found in a recent statement by the JDP member Avni Do an against the

increasing momentum of criticisms related to the socio-economic issues by the RPP’s newly

elected leader Kemal K çdaro lu: ‘It is all the doing of deep state that uprisings in the

universities have started, PKK [Kurdish Workers‘ Party] made statements that go beyond the

limit or terrorism has been dealt with leniently. In fact, çdaro lu himself has become the

party’s leader as a result of a deep state operation against [RPP’s previous leader] Deniz

Baykal.’89

Far from being used by a few people here and there, names with rather vague yet

extremely negative and conspirational connotations such as “deep state” or “Ergenekon” have

become the central pieces in the party’s discourse and used liberally against its critics during

the last years. When the opposition parties pressured the government, for instance, over the

infamous Wikileaks cables of US officials containing the claims that Erdo an has eight secret

accounts in Swiss banks, PM’s reply was: ‘as they [opposition] have figured out that

Wikileaks is doing something similar to Ergenekon, they have embraced it unquestionably.’90

Erdo an had drawn even a clearer parallel between his critics and alleged “deep state” earlier

stating ‘the previous person who claimed that I had $1 billion is now in prison under the

Ergenekon investigation.’91 A similar pattern is discernible in the statements of other JDP

members as well, regardless of the issue or actors in question. Against criticisms in the

parliament and media concerning the issue that Erdo an’s and party’s names are mentioned

in a fraud case prosecuted by German courts about a Turkish Islamic charity association,

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JDP’s response was almost the same, accusing their critics of hypocrisy as they ‘act as the

lawyers of Ergenekon case’ and then ‘they turn to the charity case and connect it with the

JDP members.’92

What is particularly worth noticing here is the significant transformation of the ways in

which the “other”, as opposed to “the people”, is conceptualized within the JDP’s discourse

in time. As indicated before, during its first years in power the JDP came up with a carefully

constructed populist discourse which used to articulate the category of “other” as constituted

mainly by those who did not share or believe in the sincerity of the JDP’s Europeanization

agenda and, instead, insisted on their claim that the party was using the EU membership

cause for implementing its hidden Islamist agenda. Party’s discourse of the time was quite

consistent in conceptualizing this insistence as a desperate cry by the traditional “elite” who

were reluctant to yield to democratization process and pass their previously unconstrained

power to the JDP government which was truly and uniquely for, by and of the people.

Under the shadow of these recent ever-expanding investigations, however, it appears like

increasing number of political parties, individuals and groups that are in any way critical

towards the JDP government and its policies are being clustered under this same single

category, but with an incriminating twist. This is to say, as vague as their boundaries are,

terms like “deep state” still bear a minimum, incriminating content simply because of the

direct, or indirect, reference they make to the illegal, conspiratorial networks of a “state

within the state”.93 And there is a tendency within the JDP’s recent discourse that is getting

gradually more visible, to draw parallels between these criminal networks and the party’s

critics regardless of the identity of those critics or the nature of issues the party is criticized

for. And the most immediate outcome of this process is the extremely polarized depiction of

the Turkish politics between Good and Evil—the JDP and deep state. So much so that the

25

coming general elections on 12 June 2011 is portrayed as ‘the most important one in Turkish

history’ as it will be a choice ‘between the JDP and the deep state.’94

3.4 Middle-Easternization, but Why?

As vital and efficient as this incriminating expansion of the category of “other” is for

the JDP’s discourse, within the theoretical framework this paper holds, it would not suffice

alone to explain the populist logic behind the JDP’s politics exhaustively. This is mainly

because in the absence of the EU membership which used to function as an empty signifier

around which the people as well as the antagonistic frontier between the “other” and “the

people” constructed, one simply would not be able to argue that the JDP’s discourse is still

populist.

However this paper argues that a new multi-dimensional concept, which might be

roughly called as the national “pride” (ba dik durma), has taken this function over within

the JDP’s recent populist discourse and found its most blunt expression in the much-

discussed phenomena of the Middle Easternization of Turkish foreign policy during the last

few years.

A through scanning of the JDP leaders’ statements quickly shows that it is relatively

recent that one finds rather bold phrases like “standing straight like a man”, “speaking truth

unashamedly” or “being proud yet not stubborn” dominating the party’s discourse and

conceptualized as the backbone principles of a transforming Turkey which would ‘lead rather

than being led’. In one of his many public speeches following the Davos quarrel with Peres in

early 2009, Erdo an stated:

Strengthening Turkey’s recognition and respectability abroad is far more

important than all the other services we have provided. We have changed

Turkey’s look, her view from abroad. Today, Turkey has come to the level of

becoming a member of UN Security Council. Today, Turkey mediates between

26

the countries that influence the regional issues. Turkey is a country that takes side

with the righteous, victimized, oppressed ones no matter where they are and

shouts the truth on top of her voice. Today, Turkey is a honorable country whose

citizens can walk around at home or abroad saying ‘I’m a Turk’ proudly and

unashamedly. We have accomplished all these thanks to our people’s energy, our

people’s excitement, our people’s sources.95

He successfully incorporated this discourse even when he congratulated Obama’s election in

an older-brotherly fashion, stating that he had ‘only one advice to Obama: stand straight but

do not intimidate’. Similar line of thought and reasoning is expressed by other JDP members

as well, including Foreign Minister Davuto lu who declared his opinion on Turkish foreign

policy today and in future rather ambitiously:

Our main target is to transform the foreign policy in such a way that the people of

this country will be proud of it and proclaim confidently ‘I am from this country

and this country is among the most important actors of world politics’. With

God’s permission, [by 2023] there will be no development in the world unless it

is heard and approved by Turkey.96

Arguably the most vivid expression of this is the transformation within the JDP’s

discourse over the issue of EU membership. As indicated before, membership used to stand

for nothing less than the single most important path for Turkey’s progress and, in fact, for her

existence in the international arena. During the party’s second term, on the other hand, a

significant change is observable which, in line with this section’s argument that national

“pride” has substituted the EU membership, clearly prioritizes Turkey standing proud and

unyielding over the prospective target of membership. As Egemen Ba , Minister of EU

Affairs and Chief Negotiator, recently commented over the criticism that Turkey’s

enthusiasm towards the membership has diminished lately:

27

Enthusiasm is a kid’s quality. Romanian PM personally told me that they have

just now figured out that they made a mistake saying ‘yes’ to everything during

the negotiation process, and warned we should not do the same mistake. Yes,

Romania completed the process in five years. Ours is taking longer because we

are not saying ‘yes’ to everything that is put in front of us. We are not in a hurry.

Thank God our economic potential is positive.97

Through such constant, direct or indirect references to the proud and unyielding

character of the Turkish people as the guiding principle behind its foreign policy decisions,

the JDP government managed to discard the EU membership as the royal road to accomplish

Turkey’s long-lasting goal of “reaching the level of contemporary civilizations” and

substitute it with national “pride”. Only on the condition that Turkey stands proud and

unyielding in the global arena, can she develop and prosper. And only the JDP leadership,

which is nothing but a pure embodiment of the great qualities of the Turkish people, can

make Turkey proud.

This has found its ultimate embodiment within Erdo an’s self-appointed role as the

“voice of the truth” apropos the Middle Eastern issues. Engaging with ‘the commonly held

belief that Turkey, as the inheritor of the Ottoman Empire, holds a particular responsibility

for the nature of international relations in this region,’98 Erdo an triggered this process with

his infamous “one-minute” rebuke against President Peres in defense of the Palestinians and

Hamas in Gaza in early 2009. Under his leadership, the JDP government continued with

other “proactive” efforts such as cutting a nuclear deal with Iran and initiating a Middle

Eastern customs union more recently. Contrary to the general expectations, these acts being

“disapproved” by the traditional authorities like the EU (in the cases of Hamas, Al-Bashir and

customs union) and the UN (apropos the Iranian nuclear deal issue) is far from constituting a

problem for the JDP’s popularity at home. Within the party’s transformed populist discourse,

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such unilateral acts against the will of traditional sources of global authority are

conceptualized as courageously executed reflections of national “pride” which is guided

solely by the great qualities of Turkish people.

Conclusion

Contrary to the predominant approaches that consider the recent Middle-Easternization

of Turkish foreign policy either as a result of the EU’s insensitive modus operandi towards

Turkey during the negotiation process or the JDP’s so-called Neo-Ottomanist ambitions, this

article argued that it is rather the outcome of a populist logic which has been characterizing

the JDP’s politics since the party’s foundation. In this respect, it is firstly asserted that from

its foundation till the opening of membership negotiations with the EU in December 2005,

the JDP’s political discourse used to be characterized with an antagonistic division

introduced between the people, whose demands could only be fulfilled via the JDP’s policies

towards Europeanization, and the elite. Relying heavily on the ideational status of Europe and

in a radically different manner from its predecessors, the JDP followed an extremely careful

strategy of keeping the elite and the Kemalist ideology they claimed to guard as much

separated as possible, charging the elite of abusing the ideological reservoir of Kemalism to

discredit JDP’s Europeanization policies which would gradually make them give their power

back to the people. As the EU cause lost its double function as an empty signifier and a buffer

zone once the membership negotiations started, the JDP began to retreat from its EU initiated

reformist track and, albeit temporarily, gave in to the guardians’ demands simply to survive

in the face of rising threats.

It is further shown that the party’s second term in power has seen a different yet even

stiffer antagonism between the “truth seeking” people and the conspiratorial deep state in the

domestic political arena. The JDP government was quick to assume the leading role in a

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series of ever-expanding legal investigations against hundreds of military members,

politicians, intellectuals and journalists who have been accused of being part of a vast

criminal organization planning to topple the JDP government and label them as the “enemy

of the people”. As the developments following up the initial stages of these investigations

indicated, the JDP’s political discourse during recent years has begun to display an extremely

polarizing tendency, depicting the party’s adversaries as part of an Evil “deep state” plot

against the Good (i.e. the JDP as the ultimate embodiment of “the people”). It is possible to

claim that such a depiction of politics carries at least two risks in Turkey. First of all, it

injures the healthy functioning of democracy as it tends to consider the opposing political

actors not as equal adversaries but as part of an Evil “deep state” whose criticisms can not be

considered as constructive in any way. They are simply refused. Also it simultaneously

complicates and simplifies finding efficient solutions to the political problems. It complicates

the process as long as political problems are considered to be doings of a “deep state”

conspiracy and thus can not be addressed through conventional political tools. Under the

circumstances where, for instance, the university students protesting against the increased

tuition fees are considered to be agitators in the service of “deep state”, it would look rather

naive proposing to decrease the fees or expand the budget for student grants. Such an

understanding also simplifies politics by reducing its purpose to the sole aim of destroying

the “deep state” which is expected to solve all the problems, no matter how complicated and

rooted they are. So rather than introducing a large-scale political paradigm shift aiming to

address the demands of Kurdish minority, the solution to the problem of terrorism within the

limits of this discourse is expected to simply wither away once the “deep state” is done with.

On the question of “Middle Easternization” of Turkish foreign policy, it is finally

argued that this transformation seems to have occurred largely as a result of the JDP’s

discursive switch from the “EU membership” to national “pride” as the key to Turkey’s

30

development and international respectability, as it is embodied in Kemalist goal of “reaching

to the level of contemporary civilizations”. With his proud and unyielding stance during the

instances like Davos meeting, Erdo an managed to gather an unprecedentedly strong popular

support identifying with his position. The JDP’s subsequent foreign policy direction have

been determined to a large extend by the goal of keeping this support going through other

“proactive”, unilateral moves which are claimed to be guided solely by the great qualities of

Turkish people. Constructing such a direct identification between the reason behind its

foreign policy decisions and “the people”, the JDP seems to be seeking to maintain its role as

the ultimate embodiment of the Turkish people.

1 Ahmet nsel, “The AKP and normalizing democracy in Turkey,” The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 102, No. 2/3, 2003, 293–308; Paul Kubicek, “The European Union and grassroots democratization in Turkey,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, 361–77; Barry Rubin and Ali Çarkog lu, eds., Turkey and The European Union (London: Frank Cass, 2003). 2 See Hasan Kösebalan, “Turkey’s EU Membership: A Clash of Security Cultures,” Middle East Policy. Vol. 9, 2002, 131-142. 3 Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey: Running West, Heading East? (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 160-4. 4 Ibid., 167-74. 5 Philip Stephens, “Turkey Turns East as Europe Clings to Past,” Financial Times, October 22, 2009; “Is Turkey Turning Its Back on the West?,” The Economist, October 21, 2010. 6 See for instance, Marcie J. Patton, “AKP Reform Fatigue in Turkey: What has happened to the EU Process?,” Mediterranean Politics. Vol. 12, No. 3, 2007, 339-358. 7 Joshua W. Walker, “Turkey’s Imperial Legacy: Understanding Contemporary Turkey through its Ottoman Past,” PGDT, Vol. 8, 2009, 494-508; Ömer Ta nar, Turkey’s Middle East Policies: Between Neo-Ottomanism and Kemalism (Carnegie Middle East Center: Washington, 2008), http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/cmec10_taspinar_final.pdf. 8 Emilia Palonen, ”Political Polarization and Populism in Hungary,” Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2009, 318-334. 9 “Erdo an Osmano lu’nun Cenazesine Kat ld ,” Hürriyet, July 17, 2010. 10 “Sudan’s Bashir in Visit to Turkey,” BBC News, August 19, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7569901.stm. 11 Guillaume Lavallee, “Sudanese President al-Bashir cancels Turkey Visit,” Hürriyet Daily News, November 9, 2009, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=sudans-beshir-cancels-turkey-visit-2009-11-09. 12 “Prime Minister Erdo an reiterates ‘no genocide’ in Darfur,” Today’s Zaman, November 9, 2009, http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-192402-prime-minister-Erdo an-reiterates-no-genocide-in-darfur.html. 13 “Turkish PM Storms of in Gaza Row,” BBC News, January 29, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/davos/7859417.stm. 14 “Gaza man names baby Recep Erdogan in honor of Turkey PM,” Haaretz News, June 6, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/gaza-man-names-baby-recep-Erdo an-in-honor-of-turkey-pm-1.294539 15 The European Council, “Common Position 2003/651/CFSP,” September 12, 2003, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32003E0651:EN:HTML. 16 “Turkish PM Describes Hamas as fighting for own lands,” Hürriyet Daily News, June 4, 2010. 17 “Erdo an ran’da, anla ma tamam,” Milliyet, May 17, 2010. 18 “Davuto lu proposes regional trade alliance at TAC meeting,” Today’s Zaman, June 11, 2010. 19 “Turkey, Arab neighbors gear up for Mideast free trade zone,” Today’s Zaman, October 19, 2010.

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20 Ali Resul Usul, “Justice and Development Party and the European Union,” in Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party, ed. Ümit Cizre (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 175-198; Patton, op. cit.; Sedef Eylemer, “Pro-EU and Eurosceptic Circles in Turkey,” Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2007, 561-577. 21 Tayyip Erdo an, Konu malar (Ankara: AK Parti, 2004), 35. 22 Ergun Özbudun and Ömer Faruk Gençkaya, Democratization and the Politics of Constitution-Making in Turkey, (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2009), 73-80; European Commission. 2003 Regular Report on Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession, http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/pdf/key_documents/2003/rr_tk_final_en.pdf; European Commission. 2004 Regular Report on Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession. http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/pdf/key_documents/2004/rr_tr_2004_en.pdf. 23 European Parliament, Report on the 2003 Regular Report of the Commission on Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession, March 19, 2004, 6. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2004-0204+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN. 24 European Commission, 2003 and 2004. 25 Patton, op. cit., 340. 26 The 2006 Common Position Paper containing the list of required steps is available online at: http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2006/nov/com_649_strategy_paper_en.pdf. 27 Gareth Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey, 177-8. 28 Quoted by Cüneyt Ülsever, “AKP’den Neden Koptum?,” Hürriyet, June 18, 2006. 29 “Ba bakan Diyarbak r’da Konu tu,” Milliyet, August 13, 2005. 30 Menderes Ç nar, “The Justice and Development Party and the Kemalist Establishment” in Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey ed. Cizre, op. cit., 124. 31 “Teröre Kar Gönül Cephesi,” Milliyet, August 6, 2005. 32 “Sevimsiz Yasa tirafi,” Milliyet, June 30, 2006. 33 Dink, editor of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was later slain by a gunman in stanbul on 19 January 2007. 34 “Mehmet Ali ahin’in CHP milletvekili Halil Ünlütepe’nin soru önergesine verdi i yan t,” Radikal, April 16, 2008. 35 Olli Rehn, “EP Debate on Turkey (The Eurlings Report),” September 26, 2006, http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/06/536&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en 36 Patton. op. cit., 344-7. 37 Walker, op. cit.; Ta nar, op. cit. 38 Walker, op. cit., 504-5; Ta nar, op. cit., 14-7. 39 Given the limited space, this article does not deal with the critique against the positivist assumption lying behind the separation of politics of “emotions” and “rationality”. For an extensive critique of the positivist ontology from a post-structuralist perspective, see Jason Glynos and David Howarth, Logics of Critical Explanation in Social And Political Theory (London: Routledge, 2007). 40 Palonen, op. cit., 330. 41 Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005); Margaret Canovan, The People (London: Polity, 2005); Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell, Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Cas Mudde, “Populist Zeitgeist,” Government and Opposition, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2004, 542-63. 42 Hans-Georg Betz and Carol Johnson, “Against the Current—Stemming the Tide: The Nostalgic Ideology of the Contemporary Radical Populist Right,” Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2004, 311–27. 43 Laclau, op. cit., 18, 223. 44 Francisco Panizza, Introduction to Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, ed. Francisco Panizza (London: Verso, 2005), 16-7. 45 Emilia Palonen. “Fringe and Mainstream Populism(s) in Hungary” (paper presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions, University of Münster, March 22-27, 2010). 46 Ernesto Laclau, “Populism: What’s in a Name?” in Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, ed. Panizza, op. cit., 40. 47 There is, indeed, a significant group in American public demanding President Obama to legalize soft drugs since the very beginning. See, for example, the minutes of Obama’s online town hall meeting on March 26, 2009 where “a fairly high percentage” of about three million participants asked about the issue: Brian Montopoli, “Obama: Legalizing Pot Won’t Grow Economy,” CBS News, March 26, 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-4894639-503544.html. Also in California alone, the advocates of legalization have collected almost 700.000

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signatures: “Advocates: Pot legalization headed to California ballot,” CNN News, March 24, 2010, http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/24/advocates-pot-legalization-measure-headed-to-california-ballot/. 48 Y lmaz Akyüz and Korkut Boratav, “The Making of the Turkish Financial Crisis,” World Development, Vol. 31, No. 9, 2003, 1549-66; Hakan Tunç, “The Lost Gamble: The 2000 and 2001 Turkish Financial Crises in Comparative Perspective” in The Turkish Economy in Crisis, eds. Ziya Öni and Barry Rubin (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 31-52. 49 The government was led by Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit and consisted of the Democratic Left Party (DSP) , Motherland Party (ANAP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Their loss of credibility was obvious in 2002 elections where all three failed to pass 10% threshold and remained outside of the parliament. 50 Canovan, The People, 65-73. 51 Paul Taggart, Populism (Birmingham: Open University Press, 2000), 3. 52 “TBMM Grup Konu mas ,” AK Parti, June 12, 2002, http://www.akparti.org.tr/tbmm-grup-konusmasi_3417.html. Similar depiction of “the people” is noticeable in many of Erdo an’s speeches. See, for example, his two other speeches on October 10, 2002, http://www.akparti.org.tr/erdogan-fethiyede-halkla-bulustu_3177.html; and October 7, 2002, http://www.akparti.org.tr/erdogan-bilecikte-_3174.html. 53 Burhanettin Duran, “JDP and Foreign Policy as an Agent of Transformation” in The Emergence of A New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party, ed. Hakan Yavuz (Utah: Utah University Press, 2006), 283. 54 “Bas n Aç klamas ,” AK Parti, April 17, 2002, http://www.akparti.org.tr/_3465.html. 55 “TBMM Grup Konu mas ,” AK Parti, April 17, 2002, http://www.akparti.org.tr/tbmm-grup-konusmasi_3387.html. 56 Ibid. 57 Interview by Hakan Yavuz with Handan Memi , a teacher in Ayd n province, March 5, 2005. Quoted in Hakan Yavuz, Secular and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 202. 58 Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Faroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (London and New York: Routledge, 1993). 59 William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 57. 60 Rubin and Çarkog lu, op. cit. 61 Kemal Kiri ci, “The Domestic Politics of Negotiation Pre-Accession: Challenges and Consequences of EU-Turkish Relations” (paper presented at Second ECPR Pan-European Conference on EU Politics: Implications of a Wider Europe, Bologna, June 24-26, 2004). 62 Meltem Müftüler-Baç, Europe in Change: Turkey’s Relations with a Changing Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). 63 Nermin Abadan Unat, Bitmeyen Göç stanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yay nlar , 2006). 64 Mahmut Tezcan, Türk Ailesi Antropolojisi (Ankara: mge Kitabevi, 2000), 173-89. 65 Jenkins, Political Islam in Turkey, 216. 66 “Erdo an: AB’nin Alternatifi Yok,” Hürriyet, March 10, 2002. 67 “ te Kafamdaki Ba bakan Profili,” Hürriyet, November 6, 2002. 68 AK Parti, Seçim Bildirisi, ( stanbul: AK Parti, 2002). 69 “Erdo an: Hükümet AB’den Korkuyor,” Anadolu Ajans , September 24, 2002. 70 “AK Parti Lideri Tekirda ’da,” hlas Haber Ajans , June 22, 2002. 71 Duran, “JDP and Foreign Policy as an Agent of Transformation,” 282. 72 “Yeter ki AB’li Olal m,” Radikal, October 19, 2003. 73 Gülnur Aybet, “Turkey and the EU After the First Year of Negotiations: Reconciling Internal and External Policy Challenges,” Security Dialogue, Vol. 37, No. 4, 2006, 529-549. 74 Nathalie Tocci, “Europeanization in Turkey: trigger or anchor for reform?,” South European Society and Politics, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2005, 73–83. 75 Tar k O uzlu, “Middle Easternization of Turkish Foreign Policy,” Turkish Studies. Vol. 9, No. 1, 2008, 4. 76 German Marshall Foundation, Transatlantic Trends 2010, http://www.gmfus.org/trends/doc/2010_English_Key.pdf. 77 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, “The Orthodox Church and Greek-Turkish Relations: Religion as a Source of Rivalry or Conciliation?” in Religion and Politics in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, ed. Jeffrey Haynes (London: Routledge, 2009), 51-70. 78 According to the Turkish constitution, President has the authority to veto legislations, appoint high level bureaucrats and judges. In fact, during his term, President Sezer had vetoed many legislative changes, and prevented the appointment of hundreds of JDP nominees to key bureaucratic positions. Thus it seems justifiable to claim that, as the pressure from guardians intensified in the absence of EU cause, the JDP felt obliged to gain this post simply in order to be able to survive. See: Zeyno Baran, “Turkey Divided,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2008, 55-69. 79 “Cumhurba kan Sezer’den sert veda,” Milliyet, April 14, 2007.

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80 “Askerden Çok Sert Ç ,” Radikal, April 24, 2007. 81 Given the limits of this paper the guardians’ strongest retaliation against these investigations, closure case for the JDP, is not explained in detail here. It would suffice to mention that a few months after the first raid of arrests were conducted, and upon the passing of JDP-pushed constitutional amendment for the legalization of head-scarf, Public Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalç nkaya applied to the Constitutional Court for the closure of the JDP, claiming that the party had become a ‘focus for anti-secular activities’. Although the Court upheld the Prosecutor’s accusation, it decided that the situation did not merit closure and, instead, the fined JDP €17 million and warned about its future conduct. 82 “Erdo an Ergenekon’u Temiz Eller’e benzetti,” Anadolu Ajans , July 8, 2008. 83 Gareth Jenkins, Between Fact and Fantasy: Turkey’s Ergenekon Investigation (Johns Hopkins University: Washington, 2009), 9. http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/silkroadpapers/0908Ergenekon.pdf. For an informative account of the Ergenekon case see: Ak n Ünver, “Turkey’s ‘Deep State’ and Ergenekon Conundrum,” The Middle East Institute Policy Brief, No. 23, 2009, http://www.mei.edu/Portals/0/Publications/turkey-deep-state-ergenekonconundrum.pdf. 84 “Ergenekon Davas nda Geli me,” Taraf, December 23, 2010; “Balyoz Davas Ba larken,” Hürriyet, December 14, 2010. 85 Soner Çag aptay, “Turkey’s Secret Shadow Brokers,” Newsweek, March 20, 2009, http://www.newsweek.com/2009/03/20/turkey-s-secret-power-brokers.html. Those doubts gained a wider acceptance in Turkish society after later waves of arrests included university rectors, prominent NGO leader Türkan Saylan and, most recently, two respected liberal journalist Nedim ener and Ahmet k. The arrests created rifts within JDP’s own ranks, most notable being Minister of Culture Ertug rul Günay’s criticism that the legal process was increasingly resembling to the 1970’s coup environment: “Bakan Günay’dan Ergenekon Deg erlendirmesi: 12 Mart gibi,” Radikal, April 18, 2009. 86 “Tutuklama Bir Tedbirdir, Ceza Olarak Kullan lamaz,” A Haber Merkezi, accessed February 25, 2011. http://bianet.org/bianet/insan-haklari/128168-tutuklama-bir-tedbirdir-ceza-olarak-uygulanamaz. This issue had become most pressing with the death of Kuddusi Okk r, who had been arrested in perfect health and released eleven months after due to deteriorating health. He died in hospital five days after his release. Parliament’s Human Rights Commission criticized his arrest as to this day there is no statement why he had been arrested in the first place. 87 “Yarsav’dan Ergenekon Soru turmas na Ele tiri,” CNN-Türk, last modified March 16, 2009, http://www.cnnturk.com.tr/2009/turkiye/03/16/yarsavdan.ergenekon.sorusturmasina.elestiri/518039.0/index.html. 88 Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (New York and London: The Guilford Press, 2000), 9-11. 89 “K çdaro lu’nu Derin Devlet Ba kan Yapt ,” Posta, January 10, 2011. Dog an’s reference here is the scandalous incidence in May 2010 when Baykal resigned from leadership after a video was leaked to the media, allegedly depicting him having sex with a female party member. 90 “Bu ahlakd iftira yan na kar kalmaz,” Yeni afak, December 12, 2010. 91 “Erdog an Wikileaks ddialarina Ate Püskürdü,” Milliyet, December 1, 2010. 92 “Meclis’te ‘Ergenekon’ ve ‘Deniz Feneri’ Tart mas ,” Cumhuriyet, June 9, 2010. 93 Following Giorgio Agamben, it is possible to define “deep state” as an entity that includes the apparatchiks of governmentality but operates on the basis of exception, of law-founding violence. It performs solely reactive and repressive functions, uses its foundational status within the state agencies as a means to claim an exceptional status. Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005). For a detailed description and analysis of “deep state” in Turkish context see: Cüneyt Arcayürek, Derin Devlet 1950-2007: Darbeler ve Gizli Servisler ( stanbul: Detay Yay nevi, 2007). 94 “2011 Seçimi AK Parti ile Derin Devlet Aras nda,” Do an Haber Ajans , January 8, 2011. 95 “Erdog an: Vatanda lar z erefle ‘ben Türküm’ diye ba dik gezebiliyor,” Zaman, February 20, 2009. 96 “Bakan Davutog lu: 2023’te dünya Türkiye’den sorulacak,” Milliyet, May 21, 2009. 97 “Egemen Ba : AB için son karar milletin,” ABHaber, December 26, 2010, http://abhaber.com/haber.php?id=32950; “Bakan Ba : Kürt Karde imin özerklik talebi yok,” Milliyet, December 26, 2010. 98 O uzlu, op. cit., 13. See also: Bülent Aras, “The Turks and Jerusalem,” Contemporary Review, Vol. 279, No. 1629, 2001, 201-8; Michael Gunter and Hakan Yavuz, “Turkish Paradox: Progressive Islamists and Reactionary Secularists,” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2007, 289-301.