Creating the Desired Citizen
Ideology, State and Islam in Turkey

A comparative analysis of the nation-building projects of Turkey under Ataturk and Erdogan, concentrating on the idea of the 'desired' citizen.

Ihsan Yilmaz (Author)

9781108832557, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 May 2021

250 pages
15 x 23 x 2.5 cm, 0.64 kg

'Creating the Desired Citizen is a valuable book for anyone curious about the AKP government. It provides detailed information concerning its social engineering policies. It also highlights the similarities between the Kemalists and the Erdo?anists, which is not much discussed in academia or the media.' Senem Aslan, International Journal of Middle East Studies

For decades after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Turkish state promoted the idea of a desired citizen. The Kemalist state treated these citizens as superior, with full rights; but the 'others', those outside this desired citizenship, were either tolerated or considered undesirable citizens. And this caused the marginalization of ethnic and religious minorities, religious Muslims and leftists alike. In this book, Ihsan Yilmaz shows how historical traumas, victimhood, insecurities, anxieties, fears and siege mentality have negatively impacted on and radicalised the nation-building projects of the two competing hegemonic ideologies/regimes (those of Ataturk and Erdogan) and their treatment of majority and minority ethnic, religious and political groups. Yilmaz reveals the significant degree of overlap between the desired, undesired citizen and tolerated citizen categories of these two regimes, showing how both regimes aimed to create a perception of a homogenous Turkish nation.

1. Anxious Nation and Its Ambivalent Westernism
Part I. Kemalism and its Desired, Undesired, Tolerated Citizens: 2. The Rise and Consolidation of the Kemalist Hegemony
3. Kemalism's Desired Citizens
4. Kemalism's Undesired Citizens
5. Creating Kemalism's Tolerated Citizens via Diyanet
Part II. Emergence of the Counter-Hegemony: Erdo?anism: 6. Turkish Islamism and the Emergence of Erdo?anist Authoritarianism
7. What is Erdo?anism?
Part III. Creating Erdo?anism's Desired Citizens via Popular Culture and Education: 8. Erdo?anism's Desired Citizen
9. Creating Erdo?anism's Desired Citizens via Popular Culture
10. Creating Erdo?anism's Desired Citizens via Education
Part IV. Erdo?anism's Undesired Citizens: 11. Erdo?anism's Undesired Citizens
Part V. Creating Erdo?anism's Tolerated Citizens via Diyanet: 12. Creating Erdo?anism's Tolerated Citizens via Diyanet
13. The Use of Friday Sermons in Creating Erdo?anism's Tolerated Citizens
14. The Future of Erdo?an's Nation.

Subject Areas: Central government policies [JPQB], Constitution: government & the state [JPHC], Politics & government [JP], Islam [HRH], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]