The book traces how the discourse rooted in Turkey’s history and the evocation of specific key historical themes are used to legitimate new policies under the AKP government. After ascending to power as the single political party on November 3, 2002, the AKP administration pursued an accommodationist political discourse that was anchored in the governance rhetoric of the traditional bureaucratic paradigm characterized by Westernism, Western alliance, European Union (EU) membership, and aloofness toward the Middle East. This orientation prevailed until 2007, but the following year witnessed a change in political discourse that indicated the first divergence from the aforementioned paradigm. The seeds of a new political rhetoric developed on the basis of historical legacies, clearing the way for the emergence of different functions, such as deconstruction, reconstruction, and the institution of the self as appropriate teller and doer. This political discourse enables a rhetorician to condemn the dominant ideology and refashion an alternative one, and its underlying historical legacies legitimize new policies. The study interrogates the role of discourse in the AKP policymaking process, examines what particular discourses signify and reveal the interests of policy proponents, and inquiries into any gaps between discourse and the reality of the final implemented policy. In particular, it puts forward the argument that the AKP elicits a discourse that typifies a “grand legacy of history,” which refers to the deployment of rhetoric that taps into the notion of Islamic and Turkish civilization to legitimate new policies today.
Turkish politics is a field within which different mental models strive to create and retain hegemony and publicity over other mental models as alternative hegemons. Critical perspective, critical linguistics or critical discourse analysis (CDA) and discourse-historical approach (DHA) are the means to place the legitimacy struggles within language and the complicated power relations and dominance. Through the help of narrative-tracing, CDA and DHA posit three fundamental steps in the discourse: deconstruction, reconstruction, and the institution of the self as the most appropriate speaker and doer, based on the presumed competence of the rhetorical battle of hegemony via identities. Discursive strategies are incorporated in order to explicate the attributions to which the social/political actor claims exemption, distinguishing the persona from the referred entity.
This chapter proceeds methodically to scrutinizing the assumption that examining imagined representations of crucial historical figures and affairs that consolidate an alternative reading of modern Turkish history is the main essence of understanding the influence of Ottoman admiration re-writing the past. Before exploring the elements of the discourse and policy relationship, a major issue worth analyzing is the discursive forge that deconstructs and reconstructs the tenets/components of Turkish history and political culture. The chapter primarily reveals discourses of deconstruction and reconstruction through CDA and DHA. The political discourse of reconstruction is the central pillar that paves the way for the discursive introduction of a new paradigm in which a rhetorician is positioned as the most suitable narrator and agent of action. On the grounds of reciprocal constructive identification with others, the discourse of deconstruction scapegoats the opposition for the malaises of the present, whereas the discourse of reconstruction rebuilds the in-group as superior to all others.
Contemporary Turkey has been subjected to reforms, modern agendas, and novelties whose legitimacy derives from the legacy of history. The constituents of this legacy are images, historical figures, representations of historical events, and deep-rooted symbolism. These constituents are employed by President Erdoğan, the leader of the AKP, as vehicles through which he positions himself as the Ottoman descendent, the most appropriate representative of Islamic creed and Anatolian culture. He adopts these constituents in marking the boundary between the self and others through us–them distinction. The self, as the appropriate teller and appropriate doer, incrementally gains an upper hand in legitimacy struggles by recounting anecdotes, stories, and tales from history, thereby emerging as the new founding father of contemporary Turkey in the eyes of voters and introducing new policies that originate from the majestic legacy of the past. The cumulative transformation of the political culture in Turkey has been exposed to the introduction of novelties through an amalgam of symbols, representations, imagery, and figures retrieved from the aforementioned legacy. The role of discursive and non-discursive measures in projecting the self as the suitable narrator in the eyes of masses and the institution of contemporary policies can be scrutinized on the basis of the reinterpretation/appropriation of images, figures, representations, and potential symbolisms retrieved from the past. Discursive and non-discursive tools in the public sphere are meant to uncover that the symbols and symbolisms nourished by different interpretations of memory activate the image of the self and the historical legitimacy stemming from historical symbols and imageries that advance the establishment and actualization of the new.
Discourse is a reflection of ideological underpinnings regarding “what ought to be.” It is sometimes too fabulous to be practiced. It is, in one way, among many others, a perspective into a rhetorician’s utopia. It is sometimes wholly emancipated and produced independently from the real world, where policy is the outcome produced, or “what it is.” The relationship between political discourse and policy is complicated and dependent on various conditions. The preceding chapters have shown how discourse systematically deconstructs the dominant ideology and reconstructs its own as an alternative and situates the self as the appropriate teller and doer. However, no investigation has been directed to how reconstructed political discourse is translated into policy. This chapter illuminates the modus operandi that underlies the relationship between discourse and policy and that can be applied in the study of other case countries and politicians with respect to domestic and foreign policy. The chapter introduces the following terms to explicate the association: incremental discourse, avulsive discourse, incremental policy, avulsive policy, normative/moralist realm, realpolitik realm, and structural limits of power and domination.
The book traces how the discourse rooted in Turkey’s history and the evocation of specific key historical themes are used to legitimate new policies under the AKP government. After ascending to power as the single political party on November 3, 2002, the AKP administration pursued an accommodationist political discourse that was anchored in the governance rhetoric of the traditional bureaucratic paradigm characterized by Westernism, Western alliance, European Union (EU) membership, and aloofness toward the Middle East. This orientation prevailed until 2007, but the following year witnessed a change in political discourse that indicated the first divergence from the aforementioned paradigm. The seeds of a new political rhetoric developed on the basis of historical legacies, clearing the way for the emergence of different functions, such as deconstruction, reconstruction, and the institution of the self as appropriate teller and doer. This political discourse enables a rhetorician to condemn the dominant ideology and refashion an alternative one, and its underlying historical legacies legitimize new policies. The study interrogates the role of discourse in the AKP policymaking process, examines what particular discourses signify and reveal the interests of policy proponents, and inquiries into any gaps between discourse and the reality of the final implemented policy. In particular, it puts forward the argument that the AKP elicits a discourse that typifies a “grand legacy of history,” which refers to the deployment of rhetoric that taps into the notion of Islamic and Turkish civilization to legitimate new policies today.
Turkish politics is a field within which different mental models strive to create and retain hegemony and publicity over other mental models as alternative hegemons. Critical perspective, critical linguistics or critical discourse analysis (CDA) and discourse-historical approach (DHA) are the means to place the legitimacy struggles within language and the complicated power relations and dominance. Through the help of narrative-tracing, CDA and DHA posit three fundamental steps in the discourse: deconstruction, reconstruction, and the institution of the self as the most appropriate speaker and doer, based on the presumed competence of the rhetorical battle of hegemony via identities. Discursive strategies are incorporated in order to explicate the attributions to which the social/political actor claims exemption, distinguishing the persona from the referred entity.
This chapter proceeds methodically to scrutinizing the assumption that examining imagined representations of crucial historical figures and affairs that consolidate an alternative reading of modern Turkish history is the main essence of understanding the influence of Ottoman admiration re-writing the past. Before exploring the elements of the discourse and policy relationship, a major issue worth analyzing is the discursive forge that deconstructs and reconstructs the tenets/components of Turkish history and political culture. The chapter primarily reveals discourses of deconstruction and reconstruction through CDA and DHA. The political discourse of reconstruction is the central pillar that paves the way for the discursive introduction of a new paradigm in which a rhetorician is positioned as the most suitable narrator and agent of action. On the grounds of reciprocal constructive identification with others, the discourse of deconstruction scapegoats the opposition for the malaises of the present, whereas the discourse of reconstruction rebuilds the in-group as superior to all others.
Contemporary Turkey has been subjected to reforms, modern agendas, and novelties whose legitimacy derives from the legacy of history. The constituents of this legacy are images, historical figures, representations of historical events, and deep-rooted symbolism. These constituents are employed by President Erdoğan, the leader of the AKP, as vehicles through which he positions himself as the Ottoman descendent, the most appropriate representative of Islamic creed and Anatolian culture. He adopts these constituents in marking the boundary between the self and others through us–them distinction. The self, as the appropriate teller and appropriate doer, incrementally gains an upper hand in legitimacy struggles by recounting anecdotes, stories, and tales from history, thereby emerging as the new founding father of contemporary Turkey in the eyes of voters and introducing new policies that originate from the majestic legacy of the past. The cumulative transformation of the political culture in Turkey has been exposed to the introduction of novelties through an amalgam of symbols, representations, imagery, and figures retrieved from the aforementioned legacy. The role of discursive and non-discursive measures in projecting the self as the suitable narrator in the eyes of masses and the institution of contemporary policies can be scrutinized on the basis of the reinterpretation/appropriation of images, figures, representations, and potential symbolisms retrieved from the past. Discursive and non-discursive tools in the public sphere are meant to uncover that the symbols and symbolisms nourished by different interpretations of memory activate the image of the self and the historical legitimacy stemming from historical symbols and imageries that advance the establishment and actualization of the new.
Discourse is a reflection of ideological underpinnings regarding “what ought to be.” It is sometimes too fabulous to be practiced. It is, in one way, among many others, a perspective into a rhetorician’s utopia. It is sometimes wholly emancipated and produced independently from the real world, where policy is the outcome produced, or “what it is.” The relationship between political discourse and policy is complicated and dependent on various conditions. The preceding chapters have shown how discourse systematically deconstructs the dominant ideology and reconstructs its own as an alternative and situates the self as the appropriate teller and doer. However, no investigation has been directed to how reconstructed political discourse is translated into policy. This chapter illuminates the modus operandi that underlies the relationship between discourse and policy and that can be applied in the study of other case countries and politicians with respect to domestic and foreign policy. The chapter introduces the following terms to explicate the association: incremental discourse, avulsive discourse, incremental policy, avulsive policy, normative/moralist realm, realpolitik realm, and structural limits of power and domination.