عنوان

Turkey, domestic norms, and Outside Turks :

Number

TLets654815

Title Proper

Turkey, domestic norms, and Outside Turks :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Tabak, Husrev

Title Proper by Another Author

Kosovar Turks' quandary with post-Kemalist norms

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Manchester

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Thesis (Ph.D.)

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

This thesis is about foreign policy analysis and what it could learn from an examination of Turkey's Outside Turks policy. More specifically, the thesis explores the implications of the post-Kemalist changes in Turkey on Outside Turks communities in the case of Kosovar Turks and offers a norm-based analysis of the constitutive relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy formation and conduct. Throughout the thesis, accordingly, the domestic norms guiding the way Turkey approaches Outside Turks, the conduct of domestic norms-guided Outside Turks policy and, finally, the implications of such policy for the Kosovar Turks are explored. Based on this, the study establishes firstly that the traditional policy of transforming the religiously defined Turkish speaking Muslim communities in the surrounding countries to nationally thinking and acting ethnic Turkish communities has changed after 1980s, but particularly during the Justice and Development Party rule. The aspiration shifted towards imagining Outside Turks in cultural and religious lines, other than in purely ethnic sense. Thus invoking and safeguarding the practice of Muslim identity, history and culture became a priority concern in the Outside Turks policy agenda. The thesis secondly establishes that this shift in approach has been generated by four post-Kemalist norms, namely Ottomania, de-ethnicized nationhood, Turkish Islam, and Islamic Internationalism. These post-Kemalist norms have manifested themselves as practices of transforming the ethnically mobilized and behaving Turkish community in Kosovo as religiously and historico-culturally thinking and acting community. The thesis thirdly establishes that the post-Kemalist approach to the Outside Turk community in Kosovo has been constitutive for the community. Accordingly, Turkey's anti-nationalist practices and activities of restoring inter-ethnic relations in Ottoman lines have partly relieved the relations between Turks and Albanians, facilitated the transcending of ethnicity as a bases for organizing relations, and increased the scope for collaboration between Muslim communities in the country. However, such post-Kemalist policies could not deconstruct the dominant nationalist framings, it has rather been counter-productive. Therefore, due to the post-Kemalist approach, the ethnic Turkish identity has been sharpened, Ottomans have been ethnicized as a Turkish emperorship, the nationalism gained a reactionary character, and people now believe that their ethnic survival is jeopardized by Turkey's anti-nationalism or 'anti-Turkism' as the community calls it. This in return has led the community to further embrace Kemalist frames and discourses to resist Turkey's post-Kemalist approach and norms. The thesis, consequently, introduced a norm-based foreign policy analysis model for examining the overseas implications and influences of domestic norms and norm changes.

Turkey, Domestic Norms, Outside Turks, Kosovar Turks, Post-Kemalism

Tabak, Husrev

University of Manchester

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

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