Imperial Grandeur and Selective Memory: Re-assessing Neo-Ottomanism in Turkish Foreign and Domestic Politics

Since the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Turkish government’s foreign and increasingly domestic politics have been characterized as ‘neo-Ottoman,’ a concept which both its critics and champions have wielded in different ways. The article revisits and reassesses articulations of neo-Ottomanism in Turkish foreign policy, and explores the significance of its appearance in Turkey’s domestic politics in Turkey. In doing so, it offers an explanation that draws out the distinct and varied interpretations of neo-Ottomanism present in such debates. It argues that neo-Ottomanism as used within a foreign policy milieu is not without its analytical use but is contestable due to its wide range of interpretations. Following this, the article analyzes the more recent appearance of the concept of neo-Ottomanism in Turkish domestic politics, highlighting its confluence with the increasing authoritarianism of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a newly empowered president. It highlights how the AKP has embraced and appropriated a precisely delineated neo-Ottomanism as a rhetorical and legitimating framework for its domestic policies. In doing so, the article demonstrates how neo-Ottomanism as developed and understood in the foreign policy arena initially, has been adopted in domestic politics under the AKP

Neoosmanizam versus panislamizam

Neo-Ottomanism is a phenomenon that becomes more and more interesting for the Politology of religion. Because of fact that Neo-Ottomanism is just a part of Pan-Islamism. And Pan-religious movements are important subject of the study of this science. Pan-Islamism tends to unite all Muslims into a single Islamic state, and Neo-Ottomanism is only one link in the chain of Pan-Islamism. Neo-Ottomanism tends to regain its influence over Muslims who were part of the Ottoman state .That's why Neo-Ottomanism only facilitates pan-Islamic goals.Neoosmanizam je pojava koja postaje sve zanimljivija za politikologiju religije. Zato što je neoosmanizam samo deo panislamizma. A religijski panpokreti su važan predmet izučavanja ove nauke. Panislamizam teži da ujedini sve muslimane u jedinstvenu islamsku državu, a neoosmanizam je samo jedna karika u lancu panislamizama. Neoosmanizam bi da povrati svoj uticaj na muslimane koji su bili u sastavu imeperije. Tako ostvarivanje ciljeva neoosmanizam samo olakšava panislamske ciljeve

Politics, Culture and Media: Neo-Ottomanism as a Transnational Cultural Policy on TRT El Arabia and TRT Avaz

This article examines the ways in which Turkish Radio and Television Institution (TRT), as the public service broadcaster of Turkey, has been mobilized by the Justice and Development Party (JDP) to contribute to the dissemination of a neo-Ottomanist discourse in the neighboring geographies. Our focus is on two expansions of TRT, namely TRT Avaz and TRT El Arabia, that aim at reaching markets outside the national borders of Turkey. Our interest here lies in three intersecting phenomena. One is the notion of neo-Ottomanism and its deployment as a cultural policy geared towards a market of transnational viewers. The other is the digitalization of broadcasting and the recent transformations in the global media spheres that allow for alternate cosmopolitan media cultures. Finally, we are concerned with the transformation of TRT’s role, from initially being a ‘nationalizing’ and ‘internationalizing’ institution to later being transformed into a ‘transnational’ apparatus of the JDP government. We argue that the transnationalisation of TRT has become possible under the historical coincidence of the revival of neo-Ottomanism and the transformations in the global media environment. We conclude by suggesting that in line with JDP government’s neo-Ottomanist discourse, TRT now works towards fostering a transnational communality around the notions of Ottoman culture and Ottoman morals among Arab speaking and Islamic populations

Is Turkey a Rival to the European Union? Neo-Ottoman Influence in the Balkans

Turkey, under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s presidency, has begun to re-animate some aspects of its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire. Many observers of Turkey speak of “Neo- Ottomanism,” both at home and in its foreign policy. With respect to the latter, aspects of neo-Ottomanism are very evident with Turkey’s engagement in the Balkans. As European Union (EU) accession seems more and more unlikely for Turkey, one might wonder if Turkish actions in the Balkans can be seen as trying to rival the EU for influence. This paper thus seeks to answer two questions. First, what factors are motivating Turkish foreign policy, and does Turkey’s neo-Ottoman influence in the Balkans make it a competitor or a partner to the EU? This paper will look at Turkish policies in the Balkan region, focusing particularly on Bosnia and Moldova, and analyze whether its growing influence is making it a competitor to the EU

Neo-Ottoman Cool 2: Turkish Nation Branding and Arabic-Language Transnational Broadcasting

Ten years after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey in 2002, Turkish-Arab relations have dramatically improved. This rapprochement was largely based on Turkey’s engagement with Arab publics as part of a soft power–based policy conceived as neo-Ottomanism. Against the backdrop of the remarkable popularity of Turkish television dramas in the Arab world, this article focuses on Turkey’s transnational broadcasting and nation-branding efforts. Acknowledging the limits and challenges to soft power, it argues that the success of neo-Ottomanism has been based on the Turkish government’s use of multiple strategies of outreach through popular culture, rhetoric, and broadcasting to create a new Turkish nation brand of neo-Ottoman cool, articulated as at once more benign and more powerful. The conclusion discusses how the Arab uprisings have complicated Turkey’s charm offensive in the Arab world

Constructing Turkish “exceptionalism”: Discourses of liminality and hybridity in post-Cold War Turkish foreign policy

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This article examines the discursive practices that enable the construction of Turkish “exceptionalism.” It argues that in an attempt to play the mediator/peacemaker role as an emerging power, the Turkish elite construct an “exceptionalist” identity that portrays Turkey in a liminal state. This liminality and thus the “exceptionalist” identity it creates, is rooted in the hybridization of Turkey’s geographical and historical characteristics. The Turkish foreign policy elite make every effort to underscore Turkey’s geography as a meeting place of different continents. Historically, there has also been an ongoing campaign to depict Turkey’s past as “multicultural” and multi-civilizational. These constructions of identity however, run counter to the Kemalist nation-building project, which is based on “purity” in contrast to “hybridity” both in terms of historiography and practice

Revisionism as a characteristic of authoritarian ex‑empires: a case study of Turkish neo‑Ottomanism (1990‑2020)

Revisionism is one of the main drivers of international conflict in the 21st century. Sensing the weakening of US global leadership, countries with regional or great power ambitions, especially former empires, increasingly resort to threats and the use of force to alter the status quo in their favour. In some cases, this involves military occupation, and even annexation of foreign territory. This article takes a closer look at neo‑Ottomanism, Turkey’s revisionist foreign policy, and its gradual transition from a soft‑power to a hard‑power approach, which eventually led to Ankara’s military incursion and occupation of parts of neighbouring Syria

Historical Reflection on Neo-Ottoman Weltanschauung: between Identity-making and Foreign Policy

The text is a diachronic presentation of the development of neo-Ottoman ideology in Turkey. After six decades of secular Kemalism that assimilated minorities under a single Turkish identity, Turgot 6zal\u2019s government progressively reintroduced elements of Islam in Turkish public life and revived the 19th-century concept of Ottomanism involving a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious state. Islamic spiritual movements contributed to the start of formation of a new Turkish identity with a strong Ottoman Islamic character This process has been continued under the rule of the AKP, a party rooted in Islamic tradition but active in foreign policy. According to the party theoretician Ahmed Davuto\u11flu, the Middle East turmoil results from the destruction of Ottoman cosmopolitanism by the European model of secularism and political nationalism and Turkey can be a pivotal state in the region. The AKP perceives Islam as a key for a new identity that will unify the various domestic ethnic groups and a way to calm regional instability while its current foreign policy carries strong pan-Ottoman undertones

Turkey’s ‘New Role’ Creation under AKP Leadership : Relationship between decision-maker’s perceptions and state’s international performance

This thesis, in its general framework, explores the recent transformation of Turkey’s role in international sphere under the ruling AKP government. Upon the rise of rise of AKP to power in 2002, the tradition of Turkey’s foreign policy orientations underwent significant transformations and challenges which signified the country’s ambition to adopt a ‘new role’ in the regional and international contexts. The states’ drive to create or recreate a role has been widely discussed among theorists of IR studies, especially the role theorists. According to national role conceptions—a fundamental conceptual framework of role theory—a state’s role is produced within a process of its decision-makers’ self-defined goals, beliefs which shape the state’s performance and role identity at the international level. Using this theoretical framework as an analytical tool, this thesis particularly aims to explore and understand the process Turkey’s ‘new role’ creation. In this regard, since Ahmet Davutoglu is commonly known as the architect of the AKP’s foreign policy decision-makings, this thesis looks at Davutoglu’s speeches and Turkey’s official development assistance as examples of both decision-makers’ perceptions and state’s international performance. This study concludes that Turkey’s aid performance is orientated toward Davutoglu’s perceptions and conceptions, which appear to have been underpinned by the ideology of neo-Ottomanism