Patterns of Nationhood and Saving the State in Turkey tackles a theoretical puzzle in understanding the state policy changes toward minorities and nationhood, first by placing the state in the historical context of the international system and second by unpacking the state through analysis of intra-elite competition in relation to the counter-discourses by minority groups within the context of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. What explains the persistence and change in state policies toward minorities and nationhood? Under what conditions do states change their policies toward minorities? Why do the state elites reconsider the state-minority relations and change government policies toward nationhood? Adopting a comparative-historical analysis, the book unpacks these research questions and builds a theoretical framework by looking at three paradigmatic policy changes: Ottomanism in the mid-19th century, Turkish nationalism in the early 1920s, and multiculturalism in Turkey in the early 2000s. While the book reveals the role of international context, intrastate elite competition, and non-state actors in such policy changes, it argues that state elites adopt either exclusionary or inclusionary policies based on the idea of "survival of the state." The book is primarily an important contribution to studies in ethnicity and nationalism. It is also an essential resource for students and scholars interested in Comparative Politics, Middle East Studies, the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey.

Making a country great again is a theme for nationalist authoritarians. Across countries with past experience as great powers, nationalist politicians typically harken back to a golden age. In Nostalgia for Empire, Hakan Yavuz focuses on how this trend is playing out in Turkey, a nation that lost its empire a century ago and which is now ruled by a nationalist authoritarian who invokes nostalgia for the Ottoman era to buttress his power. Yavuz delves into the social and political origins of expressions of nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire among various groups in Turkey. Exploring why and how certain segments of Turkish society has selectively brought the Ottoman Empire back into public consciousness, Yavuz traces how memory of the Ottoman period has changed. He draws from Turkish literature, mainstream history books, and other cultural products from the 1940s to the twenty-first century to illustrate the transformation. He finds that two key aspects of Turkish literature are, on the one hand, its criticism of the Jacobin modernization of Turkey under Ataturk, and on the other a desire to search the Ottoman past for an alternative political language. Yavuz goes onto to explain how major political actors, including President Erdogan, utilize the concept of empire to craft distinctive conceptualizations of nationalism, Islam, and Ottomanism that exploit national nostalgia. As remembered today, the Ottoman past seems to be grounded in contemporary conservative Islamic values. The combination of these memories and values generates a portrait of Turkey as a victim of major powers, besieged by imagined enemies both internal and external. In mapping out how nostalgia is crafted and spread, this book not only sheds light on Turkey's unique case but also deepens our understanding of nationalism, religion, and modernity.

This handbook presents a comprehensive survey of the formation and transformation of nationalism in 15 East and Southeast Asian countries. Written by a team of international scholars from different backgrounds and disciplines, this volume offers new perspectives on studying Asian history, society, culture, and politics, and provides readers with a unique lens through which to better contextualise and understand the relationships between countries within East and Southeast Asia, and between Asia and the world. It highlights the latest developments in the field and contributes to our knowledge and understanding of nationalism and nation building. Comprehensive and clearly written, this book examines a diverse set of topics that include theoretical considerations on nationalism and internationalism; the formation of nationalism and national identity in the colonial and postcolonial eras; the relationships between traditional culture, religion, ethnicity, education, gender, technology, sport, and nationalism; the influence of popular culture on nationalism; and politics, policy, and national identity. It illustrates how nationalism helped to draw the borders between the nations of East and Southeast Asia, and how it is re-emerging in the twenty-first century to shape the region and the world into the future. The Routledge Handbook of Nationalism in East and Southeast Asia is essential reading for those interested in and studying Asian history, Social and Cultural history, and modern history.

Delving into Turkey’s political playing field, this book examines how an ethnic party increased its vote shares. The case study looks at the rise of the Kurdish party in Turkey’s 2011 national elections in relation to the mainstream political parties' strategies. The research explores the strategy of the dominant Justice and Development Party that garnered the majority in three consecutive elections, introduced a new political issue, and even initiated an opening process. Investigating the reasons behind why such a dominant party would put itself at risk with this bold strategy and why it still lost votes to the ethnic party in the process, the book traces Turkey’s handling of the Kurdish issue. Combining a detailed analysis of election results, speeches, and social survey findings, the volume offers a novel approach and a rare example of the application of process-tracing methodology. Additionally, the study is one of the first to utilize unsupervised model of scaling texts on the ethnic issue dimension. As the first systematic analysis of the Kurdish opening process, the book will be of interest to students and scholars researching in qualitative methodology, text analysis, ethnic and party politics, Turkey, and the Middle East.

This book explores the roots of the decline of democracy and the rise of hegemonic parties in Turkey, by comparing the Justice and Development Party (AKP) with other comparable cases throughout the world. Offering a novel analysis in the rise of hegemonic parties, this book incorporates the analysis of state-society relations and institutionalist approaches. A hegemonic party is a single political party that dominates the scene in multi-party elections for extended periods of time. Focusing on the cases of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Russia and other countries through the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe, the book proves that hegemony building is possible through the combination of societal and institutional factors at the individual, local, and national levels. Multilingual comparative content analysis, rigorous statistical tests, and in-depth elite-level interviews support this theory, based on an extensive fieldwork analysis. Analysing contemporary as well as historical cases of hegemonic parties, the volume will be of interest to researchers and students in a broad range of areas including democratization, political parties and Turkish politics.

Winner of the 2021 Suraj Mal and Shyama Devi Agarwal Book Prize This book provides a socio-economic examination of the status of women in contemporary Turkey, assessing how policies have combined elements of neoliberalism and Islamic conservatism. Using rich qualitative and quantitative analyses, Women in Turkey analyses the policies concerning women in the areas of employment, education and health and the fundamental transformation of the construction of gender since the early 2000s. Comparing this with the situation pre-2000, the authors argue that the reconstruction of gender is part of the reshaping of the state–society relations, the state–business relationship, and the cultural changes that have taken place across the country over the last two decades. Thus, the book situates the Turkish case within the broader context of international development of neoliberalism while paying close attention to its idiosyncrasies. Adopting a political economy perspective emphasizing the material sources of gender relations, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, political Islam and Gender Studies.