Understanding Erdoğan's 'New Turkey': Identity Politics Inside Out

Understanding Erdoğan's 'New Turkey': Identity Politics Inside Out

A Talk by Lisel Hintz, Assistant Professor of International Relations and European Studies, Johns Hopkins University 

In this talk based on her new book from Oxford University Press, Dr. Hintz explores the rise of Ottoman Islamism as an understanding of Turkish national identity that challenges a previously dominant Western-oriented, secularist form of Turkishness. She analyzes how Turkey's ruling AKP and leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used the EU accession process to weaken Republican Nationalist obstacles to their Ottoman Islamist proposal for Turkish identity back home, thus opening space for Islam in the public sphere and a foreign policy targeted at achieving leadership for a "New Turkey" in the Middle East. This "inside-out" approach to identity politics sheds light on otherwise confusing domestic and foreign policy shifts on the EU, Syria, Russia, the Kurdish conflict, civil-military relations, and much more. 

Sponsoring Departments: Middle Eastern Studies Program, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, Turkish Student Association

Contact Enes Sayin for more information: eosayin@syr.edu