New Turkey and the Far Right: How Reactionary Nationalism Remade a Country

by Selim Koru

Overview

Turkey is among a league of revisionist powers who are challenging the world order. Erdogan and his Islamist movement have aimed to create the “New Turkey”, preparing for a future that is less dependent on Western treaty allies and with an alliance structure of its own.

This book is about the political ideas driving Turkey's regime change and foreign policy. It de-exceptionalizes Turkish politics, arguing that the “New Turkey” is part of a global trend of far-right nationalist movements like that of Donald Trump in the United States or Narendra Modi in India. In particular, the book reveals how far-right nationalist strands in Turkey have been nurtured by an existential resentment of the West, similar to those we are seeing in Russia. In tracing this resentment and its historical roots, the book invites policymakers and experts to better understand the new relationships Turkey is building with fellow revisionists including China and Russia, as well as Turkey's involvement in the wars in Syria and Ukraine and Erdogan's grand strategy for expansion.

The book is based on interviews with senior politicians and civil servants from across the country's political spectrum. It also benefits from the author's personal knowledge of Turkey's far-right and Islamist traditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780755656448
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/20/2025
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Selim Koru is an analyst at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) and a fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). He is currently a PhD candidate in political philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He holds an M.A. in international politics and economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a B.A. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His writing has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and Foreign Affairs.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Introduction

Chapter 1: Roots
A Nation Among Nations.
Resentment, Revaluation and Romanticism in 18th Century Europe.
Turkish Romanticism.
The Turkish Far-Right During the Cold War.
The Two Men of Ressentiment.
Conclusion: Re-valuing the Republic.

Chapter 2: The Institutional Structure of “New Turkey”
The messy solar system.
The Road to the Executive Presidency.
Ruling through the Oligarchic Networks.
Where is the System Going?

Chapter 3: Making Strategy in New Turkey
Looking for a new normal.
The Factory Settings: Liberalization.
Blood Touches the Wolf's Tooth: The Syrian Civil War and the Kurds.
Catharsis: the Coup Attempt.
The New Normal.

Chapter 4: Turkey's relations with Russia and China
A Career of Geopolitical Proportions.
Turkey - Russia: Hot Steel Quenched in Water.
Case Study: Turkey-Ukraine Relations During the War.
China-Turkey Relations: The Dog That Didn't Bark.
Case Study: the Uyghur Question.

Chapter 5: The Geopolitical Vision of Greater Turkey
Introduction.
Territory.
Liberal Expansion.
Redrawing the Map.
Population.
Who Belongs to the Nation?
A Muslim Cosmopolitanism and The Secular Turkish Fear of Replacement.
Military Development and Alliance Structure.
Turkey's Native Arms Industry.
NATO in the Age of Competitive Occidentalism.
New Alliance Structure.

Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

In this timely volume, Koru provides a fluid account of the ideological underpinnings of some of the major strategic decisions and orientations of Turkey's leader of two decades Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party. This is important reading for anyone interested in understanding the nature of the internal and external changes Turkey has experienced in recent years .” —Simon A. Waldman, Lecturer, King's College London, UK

From the Publisher