| Summary/Abstract |
This article provides analyses as to how foreign policy affects domestic politics, in particular the AKP’s struggle with Kemalism. It examines how Kemalism was delegitimized through the initial democratic, pro-European Union and pro-West discourse of the AKP. It then analyzes Kemalism’s marginalization under the civilizational, neo-Ottoman discourse advanced by Ahmet Davutoğlu. Finally, it explores Kemalism’s alienation through the opposition CHP, which has been impacted by the neo-Ottoman discourse, as currently constructed. It concludes that the AKP’s struggle with Kemalism did not end even when it established control over the state and when the ideological Kemalist nation-state identity was replaced by a new content in the form of an Ottoman-Islamic civilization. The article relies on a method of interpretative analysis of the AKP and Kemalist movements.
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