Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses:
Political Debates on Refugees in Turkey
by Zeynep Yanaşmayan (Department of Law and Anthropology,
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle),
Ayşen Üstübİc İ (Koç University, Istanbul) and
Zeynep Kaşlı (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam)
Abstract
This article explores the extent and limits of anti-immigration discourse in recent political
debates in Turkey. Anti-immigrant discourses have been at the heart of exclusionary
populisms, where right-wing political actors present immigrants as economic, social
and security threats. It is remarkable that this is not yet the case in Turkey, one of the
world’s major refugee-receiving countries. Using an original dataset, composed of party
programmes, parliamentary records and public statements by presidential candidates in the
last two rounds of general and presidential elections between 2014 and 2018, we argue that
politicians from both incumbent and opposition parties in Turkey have used the ‘refugee
card’ to appeal to the growing social, economic and cultural grievances of their voters but
in a rather limited and divergent manner. Debates over migration have oscillated between
the Western European right-wing populist perception of ‘threat’ and the pro-Syrian and
civilizationist populism of the ruling party that relies on a transnational notion of ‘ummah’.
Introduction
The rise of right-wing populism has widely been
seen as a threat to diversity. Anti-immigrant discourses have been at the heart of the ‘populist
turn’ in Europe and the US and served to enlarge
the voting base of far-right political parties
(Rydgren 2005; Stockeemer 2016). At the same
time, empirical research reveals that support
for right-wing populism has little to do with the
actual volume of migration (Stockeemer 2016)
and that the xenophobic language of populists is
contagious (Rydgren 2005). In this regard, Hogan
and Haltinner (2015) talk about a ‘transnational
populist playbook’ that has diffused across the
Western world and consistently construed immigrants within overlapping themes of economic,
security and identity threats (Hogan and Haltinner 2015). In this paper, we are interested in
uncovering the extent to which anti-immigration
populist rhetoric is translated into non-western
contexts such as Turkey, which is hosting an
unprecedented number of refugees and where
the government is held by an Islamist party that
(selectively) utilizes a civilizationist populist discourse at home and abroad.
Turkey is a major refugee recipient country,
with over 3.5 million Syrian refugees under temporary protection as well as 300,000 refugees
mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. From
the first day of the Syrian crisis, in 2011, Turkey,
thanks to its initial open-door policy, received Syrians fleeing civil war; these individuals are often
referred to as ‘guests’, not ‘refugees’ or ‘asylum
seekers’, even though this term has no equivalence in international law. ‘Guests’, as used by
the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP),
is framed in reference to the notion of hospitality, justified through religious fraternity, and indicates an expectation of temporary stay (İçduygu
NEW DIVERSITIES Vol. 21, No. 2, 2019
ISSN-Print 2199-8108 ▪ ISSN-Internet 2199-8116
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Zeynep Yanaşmayan, Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Kaşlı
et al. 2017: 460). It was not until 2014 that the
Turkish government introduced the Temporary
Protection Regulation (TPR), which provides the
basis for Syrians to access education, health services and vocational training; this is considerably
more than other asylum seekers in Turkey, who
have neither access to protection nor such services (See Baban, Ilgan and Rygiel 2017 for a critical evaluation).
Despite the welcoming attitude of the government, the presence of Syrians is far from being
truly embraced at the societal level. Recent studies show a rise in negative views toward immigration regardless of party affiliation (Erdoğan 2017;
Kaya et al. 2019). Occasionally, hashtags such as
#IdonotwantSyriansinmycountry also become
trending topics on Twitter in Turkey. One recent
instance that created backlash was the aftermath of a video showing young Syrian men carrying the Free Syrian Army flag, celebrating New
Year’s Eve 2018 in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. In
this particular instance, the Ministry of the Interior was quick to respond to the outrage, giving
an extensive interview on the situation of Syrians
in Turkey and emphasizing the religious brotherhood between Turks and Syrians, as well as their
shared Ottoman past.1 Even though identity politics is a prevalent feature of Turkish elections, it
is remarkable and equally puzzling that, unlike
political campaigns in Europe or the US during
the same period, the refugee question was not
central to the presidential or parliamentary election campaigns from 2014 through 2018 and has
been only marginally extended to party politics
in general.
Following Gidron and Bonikowski’s (2013: 27)
call for empirically grounded analyses of populism, and incorporating a broad corpus of political texts targeting the general public into the
analysis, we will unpack the puzzle of this relative absence of immigration debates in electoral
1
Interview with Minister of the Interior Süleyman
Soylu, 07.01.2019, Habertürk https://www.haberturk.com/icisleri-bakani-suleyman-soylu-turkiyedeki-suriyelilerin-cogu-misak-i-milli-sinirlari-icinden-2283766# (accessed January 7, 2019)
38
politics in Turkey, making use of an original dataset consisting of party programmes, parliamentary records and public statements by presidential candidates in the two rounds of general and
presidential elections since 2014. While recent
research on anti-immigration discourse in Turkey focuses on media coverage (IGAM 2019;
Sunata and Yildiz 2018), fewer studies analyse
statements by political actors (e.g., Ilgıt and
Memişoğlu 2018, İçduygu et al. 2017). Moreover,
focusing on the parliamentary debates and not
only on the discourses of populist leaders or parties opens up the analysis to a diversity of views
on the subject, reasoned through different ideological positions (Fletcher 2008).
The data on parliamentary records was gathered by examining specific periods around election times and two key events. The time frames
are three months before the August 2014 presidential elections, June 2015 and November
2015 general elections, and June 2018 presidential and general elections. The time frames
surrounding the key events are defined as 1-30
March 2016 and 1-15 July 2016, which, respectively, coincide with the signing of the TurkeyEU deal and Erdoğan’s statement on granting
citizenship to Syrian refugees. With the help of
two research assistants, we went through the
minutes of General Assembly meetings during
the designated time frames and compiled all
statements containing the keywords ‘refugee’,
‘asylum seeker’, ‘migrant’, ‘temporary protection’, ‘Syrian’ or ‘Syria’. These statements were
then coded based on a predefined code list, and
codes were stretched or changed in a grounded
fashion. Overall, we read and coded party manifestos of the Justice and Development Party
(AKP), Republican People’s Party (CHP), Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), People’s Democratic
Party (HDP) and Good Party (IYI Party), in addition to 408 individual statements from members
of the General Assembly.2
2
Of these individual statements194 were related to
the conflict in Syria; all others regarded Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses
The article first provides a review of the literature, in which populist politics in Turkey is
situated within two global trends: the rise of
anti-immigrant populism in Western countries
and Islamic populism in predominantly Muslim
countries. Following Kaya et al. (2019) and, to a
certain extent, Brubaker (2017), these could be
conceptualized as opposite camps within the
civilizationist paradigm. Against this background,
the main part of the article explores the extent
and limits of anti-immigration discourse in recent
political debates in Turkey. Our analysis reveals
that both incumbent and opposition parties in
Turkey have used the ‘refugee card’ to appeal to
the growing social, economic and cultural grievances of their voters, but in a rather selective and
limited manner. While AKP’s civilizationist populism has grown, contrasting with the European
example by rhetorically including Syrian refugees
in the definition of ‘the people’, the article also
points out its perils in fuelling existing discontent
and societal cleavages, especially in the absence
(or silencing) of rights-based discourses recognizing existing ethnic and religious diversity in
Turkey. In the light of our findings, in the final
section, we discuss why politicians’ use of antiimmigration discourse has so far remained limited in Turkey.
Diversity of populisms, anti-immigration
rhetoric and Turkey
While there is general acceptance of the fact that
populism inevitably entails a moral counter-position of ‘the people’ vs. ‘the elite’ (e.g., Mudde
2004), there is considerable disagreement about
its further characterizing features and its inclusionary and exclusionary variations. One important contestation, as aptly put by Brubaker (2019),
remains between nationalism and populism—at
both the conceptual and empirical level—not
the least due to the intertwinement and success
of populist and anti-immigrant discourses empirically observed across Europe in the last decade.
More importantly, however, Brubaker (2019:
13) underlines that such conceptual ambiguity
is integral to and constitutive of populism since
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
‘populist claims-making is located at the juncture
of the politics of inequality and the politics of
identity, where questions about who gets what
are constitutively intertwined with questions
about who is what’ (emphasis original). Such
exclusionary populist narratives target ‘elites’,
who are perceived simultaneously as being at
the top of society and as outsider to a given
society. Therefore, following Brubaker (2017,
2019) and other scholars (e.g., Arditi 2007; Müller 2016), we understand populist discourses as
inherently anti-pluralist and majoritarian discourses that construe diversity as a threat to
social cohesion and constantly create demonized
out-groups: minorities, migrants, dissidents and
opposition parties and politicians (Filc 2009 cited
in Yabanci 2016). Therefore, our definition aligns
more with what Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013)
identified as ‘exclusionary populism’ that is most
prevalent in Europe. However, our focus is on
discourses and the extent to which political parties in Turkey employ the populist card against
refugees, which is regardless of whether or not
the political parties themselves are characterized
as populist per se.
The conceptual and empirical ambiguity of the
term ‘populism’ has led to intense debates about
the line separating populist anti-immigrant and
far-right parties, which has proven hard to draw.
While van Spanje (2011) demonstrates that
these are not identical in Western Europe, and
Stavrakakis et al. (2017: 421) describe the mostwell known examples—such as the National
Front in France—as nationalist and only secondarily as ‘populist’, others treat right-wing or
radical-right populist parties as quintessentially
nativist and thereby anti-immigrant and/or antiminority (e.g., Akkerman, de Lange and Rooduijn
2016; Mudde 2013). Moreover, significant diffusion effects have been noted as they borrow from each other’s master frames (Rydgren
2005). According to Hogan and Haltinner (2015),
similarities in the immigration threat narratives
of right-wing political parties and social movements, especially in Western democracies, indicate a shared ‘transnational populist playbook’
39
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Zeynep Yanaşmayan, Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Kaşlı
in which, regardless of the volume of immigration, immigrants are represented as economic
and social threats, blamed as the main reason
for crime, and demonized as the ‘enemy Other’.
For Brubaker (2017), this is a particularly Northern and Western European populist moment,
distinctive in the sense that the opposition
between the self and the other is defined not
in narrow national but in broader civilizational
terms as a liberal defence against the threat of
Islam (see also Akkerman 2005; Betz and Meret
2009).
While it is important to record the rise of antiimmigration position in the West, which is very
much infused with anti-Islamic discourse, studies
examining various faces of populism in different
parts of the world hint at deep-seated anxieties
about the negative social and economic effects
of globalization (see, for example, Aytac and Onis
2014; Hadiz and Chrysseogelos 2017). In his comparative study of three Muslim-majority societies, namely Indonesia, Egypt and Turkey, Hadiz
shows how such grievances can be rebranded
under what he calls ‘Islamic populism’ (Hadiz
2016: 28). He demonstrates that in Muslimmajority societies, the combination of post-Cold
War era social conflicts, post-9/11 context and
post-Arab Spring political conflicts has led to the
concept of the ‘ummah’ (community of believers) being increasingly defined in national terms
and a substitute for the notion of ‘the people’
united against ‘social orders that are perceived
to be inherently exclusionary, unjust and therefore simultaneously immoral’ (Hadiz 2016: 12).
As Kaya et al. (2019) argue, this can be partly
seen as the flip side of the same civilizationist
populist discourse found in the West.
Over the course of its uninterrupted singleparty rule since 2002, the AKP has capitalized
on ‘the people vs. Kemalist elite/establishment
dichotomy’ at home and the rising anti-Islamist
civilizationist narratives abroad. While populism
is not a new phenomenon in Turkish politics
(see Baykan 2014 for a history of the concept),
the AKP has managed to sustain a hegemonic
populism by not only creatively re-producing
40
its character as the guardian of ‘the people’ but
also through consecutive election wins (Çınar
2015; Dincsahin 2012; Hadiz 2016; Yabanci 2016).
Since the 2010s, when AKP’s ‘conquest of the
state’ (Somer 2017) left it with no establishment
actors to blame, its populist strategy continued
targeting the CHP—the main opposition party—
and, increasingly, Western actors (Aytaç and Elçi
2019; Elçi 2019). Therefore, the AKP’s populist
discourse has decidedly moved into a civilizationist discourse that revitalizes and instrumentalizes
Turkey’s Ottoman heritage and takes its strength
from the claim of being ‘the center of the Muslim
ummah’ (Kaya et al. 2019: 6). In the face of the
mass migration of majority Sunni Syrians fleeing
from Assad’s suppression, this civilizationist populist style has manifested itself in religious brotherhood narratives that pit Turkey’s hospitality
against the indifference of the West. Critiques of
the AKP’s open-door policy have developed as
part and parcel of this hegemonic civilizationist
populist style, taking different forms depending
on the ideological distance between the incumbent AKP and opposition parties.
When it comes to anti-immigrant populist discourses in Turkey, our knowledge is still limited.
The literature on attitudes toward migrationrelated issues is rather new and overwhelmingly
focuses on public opinion and media representation. Erdoğan’s (2017) longitudinal data on public attitudes towards Syrians shows increasing
levels of ‘othering’ against Syrians. Even though
both the media (Sunata and Yıldız 2018) and
public continue to define Syrians as victims, the
distance between the citizens and refugees has
grown from welcoming guests towards a ‘reluctant acceptance’ (Erdoğan 2017). Most recent
media reports emphasize an increase in the use
of criminalizing language (IGAM 2019). Kaya et
al. (2019) also show that even AKP voters who
otherwise endorsed its revitalization of Ottoman heritage were critical of the Syrian presence
out of fear of radicalization and socio-economic
competition. Ilgıt and Memisoglu’s (2018) contribution provides a broad description of how
the opposition parties in Turkey approach Syrian
Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses
refugees either as rival victim group with unfair
access to public services, or a demographic
threat.
Here, we examine what happens to anti-immigrant rhetoric across the political spectrum when
the incumbent party itself follows a civilizationist
populist style which, contrary to the European
context, selectively includes refugees in its definition of ‘the people’ yet reproduces existing
ethno-religious cleavages and shies away from
any rights-based discourses. Most of the opposition parties remain incapable of challenging
AKP’s hegemonic populism since they are not
against maintaining kinship ties with populations
in the old Ottoman territories. Their critique
of the AKP’s badly managed open-door policy
does not go beyond accusing the incumbent
AKP of populist and instrumental use of Syrian
refugees against the West without calculating its
costs on Turkey’s economy. Our analysis, therefore, reveals that the dominant rhetoric of the
incumbent AKP—based on an understanding of
religious nationhood and Ottoman heritage that
is difficult for opposition parties to challenge—
offers plausible explanations for the relatively
low degree of anti-immigration discourse and
its corresponding salience in electoral politics in
Turkey.
Refugees as part of election campaigns:
Limited to no populism
While immigration has arguably not yet been
at the centre of political debates in Turkey, the
arrival of over 3.5 million Syrians over a short
period has prompted emerging debates on the
issue. A comparison of the party manifestos that
appeared prior to the 2015 parliamentary elections and 2018 parliamentary and presidential
elections demonstrated increasing space dedicated to refugees/asylum seekers and exposed
its heightened significance in domestic politics.
However, this growth in attention does not necessarily mean that refugees are cast in a more
positive light, nor that more durable measures
are being proposed. Instead, compared to 2015,
manifestos from across the political spectrum
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
in 2018—with the important exception of HDP—
put much more emphasis on return to Syria as a
longer-term solution.
As mentioned above, here we analyse statements of both members of the ruling AKP and
opposition parties represented in the parliament. The CHP is the main opposition party, with
a secular and modernist stance. The MHP is a
right-wing nationalist party, with a statist and
pan-Turkist approach. Although the party is not
in the government, it has recently moved from
opposition to a de facto alliance with the ruling
party in the aftermath of the coup attempt in July
2016. The IYI Party has been newly founded by
former MHP members and takes a clear anti-government stance while maintaining the nationalist
agenda. The HDP represents the Kurdish movement but also has a close alliance with smaller
factions of socialist and green movements in Turkey.
As the Syrian conflict has continued and the
number of arrivals has increased, we observe that
the CHP strikingly changed its position of ‘contemporary hospitality’ (çağdaş evsahipliği) from
the 2015 general election manifesto. The 2015
manifesto entailed several measures for improving access to education, healthcare, and housing of Syrian refugees, albeit keeping in mind an
eventual return. Instead, in 2018, the CHP promised a ‘voluntary, gradual and safe return process
of Syrians under temporary protection’. Similarly, the IYI Party, under the motto ‘everyone is
happy in his/her homeland’, exclusively focused
on issues of return and measures to ensure the
temporariness of the refugee presence in Turkey,
such as an immediate halt of protection statuses,
cooperation with the Syrian state for repatriation
and establishment of camps in Syria.
Moreover, in 2018, the presidential candidates
of both parties addressed the return issue in
their electoral campaigns. CHP candidate Muharrem Ince, in a rare televised interview, stated that
if he were to be elected, he would close the door
to Syrian refugees who returned to Syria for Eid:
‘If you can go back for ten days, why do you come
to Turkey? Is it a soup kitchen here? My citizens
41
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Zeynep Yanaşmayan, Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Kaşlı
are unemployed’.3 Similarly, during a rally in
Mersin, IYI Party candidate Meral Akşener proclaimed: ‘Today 200,000 refugees live in Mersin.
Our standard of living has declined. I promise you
that we will be breaking the fast during Ramadan in 2019 in Syria’.4 Especially in public statements that take a more accusatory tone towards
the AKP, the return of refugees—which in and
of itself positions them outside ‘the people’—
is more clearly linked to concerns with welfare
and the economy. This is very much in line with
the ‘transnational populist playbook’ (Hogan and
Haltinner 2015), according to which populist discourses construct migrants as economic threats,
among others.
When it comes to the ruling AKP, it can be
noted that the party devoted significantly more
space to the migration theme in 2018 than in
2015.5 In line with the rest of its 2018 manifesto, the section on migration served the dual
purpose of presenting AKP achievements, most
notably the steps they have taken to improve the
legal and socio-economic status of Syrians, and
promises for the future. It contained a lengthy
discussion about services provided to refugees,
including cash transfers, without mentioning that
the latter is funded by the EU or any reference
to the EU-Turkey deal. While the 2018 manifesto
vaguely mentioned measures for Syrians and
3 ‘Muharrem İnce: Suriyelilere kapıyı kapatacağım’
(‘Muharrem Ince: I am going to close the door to Syrians’), Haber 7, 25.05.2018 http://www.haber7.com/
siyaset/haber/2633477-muharrem-ince-suriyelilerekapiyi-kapatacagim (accessed February 19, 2019).
4 ‘Akşener, 2019’a kadar mültecileri göndereceğini
söyledi’ (‘Akşener said she would return Syrians by
2019’). Siyasi Haber, 05.06.2018 http://siyasihaber4.
org/aksener-2019a-kadar-multecileri-gonderecegini-soyledi (accessed February 19, 2019).
5 All party manifestos are available in Turkish.
For the AKP 2018 manifesto, see https://www.
trthaber.com/pdf/Beyanname23Mays18_icSayfalar.
pdf
For the MHP, see https://www.mhp.org.tr/usr_img/
mhpweb/1kasimsecimleri/beyanname_1kasim2015.
pdf
For the CHP, see http://secim2018.chp.org.tr/files/
CHP-SecimBildirgesi-2018-icerik.pdf
For the İYİ Party, see https://iyiparti.org.tr/assets/
pdf/secim_beyani.pdf
42
integration policies referred to as ‘harmonization’
(uyum) by the Turkish bureaucracy, it suggested
more concrete measures for voluntary returns
and deportations. It, for instance, announced
the establishment of a national mechanism for
voluntary return that literally translates as the
‘National Voluntary Return Mechanism’ (‘Milli
Gönüllü Geri Dönüş Mekanizmasi’), which at
least discursively distinguishes it from International Organization for Migration-led ‘assisted
voluntary returns’. Moreover, the safe return
of a considerable number of migrants currently
under temporary protection at the end of their
stay was presented as the fundamental aim.
The nationalist right-wing MHP, which participated in an alliance with the AKP in the June
2018 elections, had barely anything on migration
in its manifesto. This was a drastic shift when
compared to its 2015 manifesto, which strongly
emphasized not only repatriation of asylum seekers but also offered a very criminalized image
that associated migrants with societal problems
such as theft, drug dealing, prostitution, etc. As
a newcomer to the game, the IYI Party was much
more eager to capitalize on the societal cleavages and discontent that Turkish citizens are
reportedly experiencing with the Syrian population, emphasizing the ‘burden’ refugees put on
the Turkish economy, and promised to embrace
non-arrival policies and not accept new refugees.
The CHP, along with voluntary return, had an
explicit focus on the integration and wellbeing
of migrants, particularly on issues of exploitation and child labour. The party programme also
promised to ensure transparency and accountability in the aid channelled to Syrian refugees.
At the opposite end of the spectrum stands the
HDP which, in both the 2015 and 2018 manifestos, consistently raised a pro-migrant voice. The
HDP called for lifting the geographical limitation
reservation applied to the Geneva Convention
by Turkey, instituting equal citizenship, and the
right to education in the mother tongue. The
HDP manifesto is also the only one to point out
the increasing level of hate speech and violent
attacks against refugees in Turkey.
Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses
What is also important to note across different party manifestos is the choice of terms used
in reference to the Syrian population in Turkey;
this is also emblematic of the parties’ definitions
of ‘the people’. The AKP, very much in line with
its neo-Ottomanist aspirations and strategic use
of Islamic populist tools, almost unequivocally
used ‘asylum seeker brothers’ or ‘Syrian brothers’. These designations clearly target domestic
politics but seem to find more resonance among
Syrians, who consider themselves to be culturally
similar to Turkish citizens, than among Turkish citizens, who rarely consider Syrians culturally similar (Erdoğan 2017). The AKP manifesto, at times,
used the alternative of ‘Syrian guests’, ironically
more so in the section on foreign policy, which
has ‘refugees’ in its subtitle. All other parties
refrained from using the term ‘refugee’, instead
preferring ‘asylum seekers’, ‘Syrians under temporary protection’, or ‘our Syrian guests’ in the
case of the IYI Party. HDP was the only party that
talked about ‘refugees’ and openly challenged
the ‘guest’ terminology.
AKP’s hegemonic populist discourse, different
from the Western-type populist discourse, does
not have the effect of discrediting or criminalizing entire populations of migrants but instead
selectively includes and excludes migrants
based on existing societal cleavages. Despite
the deliberately furthered ‘guest’ terminology
and emphasis on return, the 2018 parliamentary
elections were exceptional; a Syrian-origin Turkish businessman who entertains good relations
with Saudi Arabian investors became a candidate through the AKP ranks in Bursa.6 The AKP
choice of such a candidate is indicative of its selfassigned leadership role in the ummah and selective inclusion of refugees in ‘the people’. Devoid
of a genuine rights-based approach, humanitarianism remains dominant at the discursive
level for the AKP, but this does not lend itself
6
‘Suriyeli İş Adamı AK Parti’den Milletvekili Adayı
Oldu’ (‘Syrian businessman is an MP candidate for
AK Party’), 22.05.2018, https://www.haberler.com/
suriyeli-is-adami-ak-parti-den-milletvekili-adayi10876208-haberi/ (accessed February 19, 2019).
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
to concrete measures for the integration of all
newcomers. The AKP has consistently continued
to employ the strategic tools of Islamic/civilizationist hegemonic populism, not only presenting
the refugees as brothers (read as Sunni brothers) but also itself as a patriarchal figure and the
only one capable of extending protection. The
IYI Party in 2018 and MHP in 2015, at both the
party and leadership level, can be considered to
have had recourse to the anti-immigrant sentiments observed in the ‘transnational populist
playbook’, resorting to the widespread ‘threat
narratives’ (Hogan and Halttiner 2015) found in
the West, particularly that of ‘economic burden’.
Their definitions of ‘the people’ were more in
national than civilizationist terms. While the CHP
presidential candidate also briefly played the
anti-immigrant card, both the party’s manifestos and leader’s statements repeatedly reflected
concerns about integration, an emphasis on the
possibility of voluntary return and a critique of
the AKP-led civilizationist populist discourse. The
only political party that maintained an inclusionary approach towards immigration in line with its
pluralist understanding of ‘the people’ was the
HDP. The plural use of ‘we’ in the party slogan
for the June 2015 elections, ‘We(s) are headed
to the parliament!’ (‘Biz’ler meclise!’), was a clear
counter-discourse to the ‘us versus them’ language of AKP’s hegemonic populism.
Refugees in the general assembly agenda
Plurality of populist discourses
It should be noted that policies concerning refugees have been introduced by the government
at the level of decrees and regulations. Therefore, in most cases, parliamentary debates do
not revolve around immigration policies. Rather,
general discussions on various issues on the
agenda of the parliament are infused with concerns over refugees. The debates remain overwhelmingly concentrated on two key points: a)
either critique or praise of AKP-led foreign policy,
b) whether and how refugees would (not) be
welcome depending on the politicians’ take on
the existing societal cleavages and kinship ties.
43
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Zeynep Yanaşmayan, Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Kaşlı
This is followed by an emphasis on security and
criminalization issues; there is a slight increase
in emphasis on return, not only from opposition
parties but also from the government. Discussions on the integration of Syrian refugees, on
the other hand, are close to non-existent and
did not significantly increase over time, despite
empirical evidence that a considerable portion
of Syrian refugees in Turkey, especially the youth,
are likely to stay rather than return to Syria
(Erdoğan 2017).
During parliamentary discussions, representatives of opposition parties usually depict Syrian
refugees as security and social threats, a threat
to public health due to the rise in certain contagious diseases, an economic burden and source
of rising unemployment and, related to that, a
source of crime with a high potential for committing criminal offenses. MPs from all opposition
parties allude to Syrians’ presence in the country
as being ‘out of control’, ‘costly’, a ‘demographic
threat’, or ‘turning the country into a huge refugee camp’. ‘You filled Turkey with 2.5 million
Syrians; 600,000 of them live in Gaziantep. You
turned upside down our country, our city, our
balance, dear friends’, says Akif Ekici, CHP MP
from Gaziantep, a major refugee recipient city in
the South-eastern part of Turkey, near the Syrian border.7 Even HDP MPs, particularly the ones
with constituencies in the border regions, have,
in time, echoed the economic and social threat
arguments of other opposition parties.
Refugees are also often portrayed as a security
threat and subjected to criminalizing discourses,
which have taken the form of being blamed for
criminal offences such as theft8 or drug dealing.9
Additionally, they are often associated with terrorist groups, mainly because the government’s
7
TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 49, 01.03.2016.
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/
ham/b04901h.htm. All statements are translated
from Turkish by the authors.
8 Kadir Gökmen Öğüt (CHP), TBMM Tutanak Dergisi,
Session 117, 16.07.2014. https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/
tutanak/donem24/yil4/ham/b11701h.htm
9 Mehmet Erdoğan (MHP), TBMM Tutanak Dergisi,
Session 50, 02.03.2016. https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/
tutanak/donem26/yil1/ham/b05001h.htm
44
open-door policy, coupled with a lack of proper
registration, allowed the entry of an unidentifiable population where it is not possible to
distinguish between ‘real asylum seekers’ and
‘terrorists with blood on their hands’.10 Echoing
debates on the radicalization of Muslim minority youth in Western Europe, a CHP MP from
the eastern province of Tunceli raised concerns
that ‘Syrians have become a natural human
resource within the reach of all terrorist groups
in Turkey’.11 Criminalizing statements that inculpate refugees for terrorist attacks have been
more prevalent after triggering events in 2016,
such as the Atatürk airport bombing in Istanbul
and the failed bomb attack in Reyhanli, which
had already been hit in May 2013 by a deadly ISIS
attack. During discussions following President
Erdoğan’s announcement of the government’s
plan to grant citizenship to Syrians, a CHP MP
draws attention to cases of homicide, blames all
Syrians for several ISIS-related terrorist attacks,
and reminds parliament that ‘it is again those
from Syria who caused the killing of our 44 citizens at Atatürk airport’.12
Despite such clear critiques towards the implementation of the AKP’s open-door policy and its
implications, members of opposition parties also
commonly refer to Syrians as ‘brothers’ or ‘fellow Muslims’ and to hospitality as a quality of the
Turkish nation. This rhetoric of selective humanitarianism, based on shared culture and religion,
was initiated by the governing party (İçduygu et
al. 2017); but the opposition has also embraced
it in different ways, depending on their definitions of ‘the people’. Along with religious identity, ongoing kinship ties in the region prevents
people fleeing from Syria being seen as ‘the ultimate other’. MHP MPs, in particular, underline
10
Hilmi Yarayıcı (CHP), TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 111, 12.07.2016. https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/ham/b11101h.htm
11 Gürsel Erol (CHP). TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session
50, 02.03.2016. https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/
donem26/yil1/ham/b05001h.htm
12 Özkan Yalım, TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 111,
12.07.2016. https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/ham/b11101h.htm
Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses
the organic unity between Turkmens and Turks,
showing discomfort with the differential treatment received by Syrian Arabs at the border and
not extended to Syrian Turkmens. For instance,
MHP MP Sinan Oğan, in a heated exchange, asks
provocatively: ‘Why do you close the border to
Turkmens? What is their fault? Being Turkmen?
If they were Arabs, you would have opened the
border immediately […] They would not be a burden; do not worry, the AKP might not take care of
them, but the Turkish nation would’.13 Similarly,
HDP MPs are concerned with the protection
and rights of Syrian Kurds as part of ‘the people’,
although they try to frame the issue as more
multicultural, using inclusionary language. HDP
MP Erol Dora, for instance, drew attention to the
provision of education in the mother tongue that
is provided to Sunni Arab children in camps but
not to children from Kurdish, Assyrian, and Yezidi
backgrounds.14
A more often employed Western-style antiimmigrant populist frame flirting with nativism
is the ‘privileged’ treatment of Syrians vis-a-vis
Turkish citizens. Here, critiques from opposition
parties either emphasize the budget spent on the
reception of Syrian refugees or the rights granted
to them. They all imply that scarce resources
should be devoted to the country’s ‘own citizens’
rather than spent on the refugees, as the former
are also in precarious situations. CHP MP Kazım
Arslan, for instance, states that the 10-billiondollar budget spent on asylum seekers could
have been invested in establishing a manufacturing site employing 5,000 people. ‘How much
more are we going to spend on Syrians?’, he continues, ‘How much more money that could have
been spent on factories will vanish?’15 During
the intense debate on granting citizenship, oppo13
TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 128, 04.08.2014,
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem24/yil4/
ham/b12801h.htm
14 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 83, 24.03.2015
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem24/yil4/
ham/b11001h.htm
15 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 55, 07.03.2016.
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/
ham/b05501h.htm
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
sition MPs criticized the allocation of TOKI, Turkish government-supported housing, to Syrian refugees. While CHP MP Tur Yıldız Biçer asserts that
such aid ‘hit a nerve’ with the poor and disadvantaged sections of society, MHP MP Baki Şimşek
urges the government to prioritize the families
and relatives of the martyrs rather than Syrians.16
Aside from such financial costs of the AKP’s
open-door policy, the alleged preferential access
of Syrians with Temporary Protection Status (TPS)
to public services has also become a matter of
contention. CHP MP Refik Eryılmaz, for instance,
is very critical of the government policy allegedly
providing Syrian students access to higher education with scholarships and without any prior
requirements, whereas it is costly for Turkish citizens to prepare for the entrance exams. ‘Their
[Syrian students’] accommodation, school fees
and all costs are paid by the government. The
common citizen would ask then’, he continues,
‘why do you discriminate? If young people coming from abroad are given such an opportunity,
our own citizens should have it too’.17 In these
latter examples, we see even more clearly the
intertwinement of the politics of inequality and
the politics of identity (Brubaker 2019) that lies
at the very heart of the populist rhetoric. ‘The
people’ are not only invoked as a nationallybounded community but also as plebs who suffer
under the unequal redistribution policies of the
ruling party.
In addition to the use of populist rhetoric,
opposition MPs also show a readiness to utilize
plebiscitary tools such as referenda, a strategy
that is by now part and parcel of the AKP’s populist reign, which dismantle horizontal checks in
favour of direct communication with ‘the people’
(Aytac and Elci 2019; Castaldo 2018). CHP and
MHP MPs openly call for a referendum soon
after President Erdoğan unveils his plan to grant
16
TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 111, 12.07.2016,
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/
ham/b11101h.htm
17 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 80, 19.03.2015
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem24/yil5/
ham/b08001h.htm
45
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Zeynep Yanaşmayan, Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Kaşlı
citizenship to Syrians. After claiming that ‘Syrians are into crime, they are low-educated and
the country does not need an immigrant labour
force’, CHP MP Özkan Yalım proclaims: ‘Let’s
ask our people and go to a referendum without any hesitation or fear so that the citizens of
the Turkish Republic can choose the people to
live with.’18
Limits to anti-immigrant populist discourses
As portrayed so far, unlike the AKP representation of Syrian refugees as part of the same
ummah, opposition MPs’ critiques often reflect
widely differing understandings of ‘the people’
as well as public (mis)perceptions of refugees
that feed into concerns regarding public safety,
security and financial costs. On the other hand,
some MPs from across the political spectrum
show awareness of the danger of further triggering anti-immigration sentiments among the
population. Their concerns are well-founded, as
the latest results of public opinion and media
research cited above show the fragility of this
living together arrangement. They perceive the
debate over granting citizenship as potentially
explosive and a source of already-reported societal clashes in different cities within Turkey. CHP
MP Özgür Özel claims that emphasis on the
rivalry over resources between citizens and Syrians invites hostility, ‘polarization’ and a ‘lynch
culture’. While calling on everyone to be cautious about such statements, Özel also underlines that it is foremost the responsibility of the
government to avoid such tensions.19 MHP MP
Ruhi Ersoy stresses that, because of the way it
was brought up by the president and the government, such a citizenship debate carries the risk of
creating anti-Syrian attitudes among ‘the citizens
who have thus far, with love and tolerance, tried
to help Syrians, thinking that they will one day
return to their homeland’.20 Similarly, HDP MP
18
TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 111, 12.07.2016
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/
ham/b11101h.htm
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
46
Idris Baluken criticizes the AKP move of making
Syrians part of the existing political polarization,
which could potentially increase the number
of assaults. Unlike other opposition MPs, however, he references international law and states
that the first move should be the granting of
refugee status to prove that the government is
not again instrumentalizing Syrians as they did
against the EU.21
The opposition MPs’ critique of the government’s reception policy is overwhelmingly mixed
with their discontent with AKP errors in foreign
policy, especially in the early years of the Syrian
conflict. Similarly, the use of Syrians as a bargaining chip against the EU is overtly criticized by
opposition MPs from all parties. At the time when
the EU-Turkey deal came into effect, CHP MP Faik
Öztrak draws attention to the link between the
deal and Turkey’s foreign policy mistakes when
he says, ‘the then-prime minister said “I will
conduct my prayer in the Umayyad Mosque in
Damascus.” He could not pray in Damascus, but
the yard of every mosque of Turkey’s 81 cities is
full of Syrian refugees.22 Similarly, HDP MP Garo
Paylan criticizes AKP sectarianism in the Syrian
conflict, an important display of its civilizationist approach, by saying ‘the government did the
only thing they know […], sending arms to only
those from their own sect. But, what did we get
in return? Only blood and tears, and 3 million
migrants, and we used those 3 million migrants
for blackmail’.23 Several MPs from across the
political spectrum discredit the deal as a ‘Faustian bargain’ (at, koyun, Kayseri pazarlığı)24 and
blame the government for acting like a ‘night
watchman’ for refugees making sure they remain
in Turkish territory in exchange for money. In that
sense, the main critique of the opposition lies
21
22
Ibid.
TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 57, 09.03.2016
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/
ham/b05701h.htm
23 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 51, 03.03.2016
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil1/
ham/b05101h.htm
24 Literally translates as “horse, sheep, Kayseri bargain”.
Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses
in foreign policy choices, and refugees are perceived mainly as the victims of external relations
vis-a-vis the Syrian conflict and the West.
During the parliamentary debates on the
approval of the EU-Turkey readmission deal, in
order to rebut the critiques mentioned above,
several AKP MPs intervene to say ‘May God keep
anyone [in need of help] away from your door’
and display their understanding of the motivations of refugees by saying ‘no one would want
to leave their home’.25 While this pro-immigrant
discourse complements the government’s opendoor policy towards Syrians at the time, it is
also used to avoid addressing the main critique,
namely employing a selective pro-immigrant policy that is part and parcel of AKP’s civilizationist
populist discourse. While the open-door policy
has come to a halt, from the November 2015 election period onward, AKP MPs have repeatedly
glorified the refugee policy and the hospitality of
the Turkish nation, emphasizing the moral superiority of Turkey over the Western world. During
the opening of the second half of the 25th legislative year in 2015, President Erdoğan underlines
that ‘for the last four years, by adopting over 2
million Syrian and Iraqi brothers, Turkey has gone
beyond doing her neighbourly duties and saved
the honour of humanity’.26 Such references to
religious brotherhood and celebration of the
government’s hospitality as an attribute of the
Turkish nation also indicate a core component of
its civilizationist populism, underscoring the contrast between the ‘generous us’ and the ‘immoral,
xenophobic other’, especially with reference to
Western European countries. A recent example
of this is AKP MP Şahap Kavcıoğlu’s response to
opposition MPs: ‘Instead of being proud of, you
fling dirt at a country that earns the appreciation
of the world by providing 4 million refugees with
all kinds of needs, maintenance and lodging [in
25
TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 108, 25.06.2014.
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem24/yil4/
ham/b10801h.htm
26 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 1, 01.10.2015
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem25/yil2/
ham/b00101h.htm
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Turkey], and sends the highest amount of social
aid across the world’.27
Despite this rhetoric of benevolence and moral
superiority, debates on the current situation of
Syrians in Turkey are centred on their temporariness and return options. In 2015, integration was
brought up as a possible next step by a few CHP
and HDP MPs; this idea has slowly faded away,
ceding ground to a sound return policy that has
also been gradually picked up by incumbent AKP
MPs. Strikingly, the ruling AKP has centred its
return discourse on the success of Turkish military operations in Syria that have allegedly created ‘safe zones’ where people may return.28
AKP MP Çiğdem Karaaslan proudly announces:
‘with the Olive Branch Operation that we initiated on 20 January 2018, we cleansed Afrin
of terrorists on the 103rd anniversary of the
Çanakkale triumph. Our Syrian brothers who had
to leave their homes and homelands have now
begun to return in peace and security’.29 The resolution allowing military interventions has been
accepted and extended in the assembly with the
support of the AKP, MHP, and CHP.30 Once again,
effectively blending the issue with existing societal cleavages [i.e., the long-lasting conflict with
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and nationalist pride as in the reference to the Independence
War], the AKP has taken hold of the discursive
upper hand with little opposition.
In other words, while opposition MPs often
criticize the government’s use of the refugee
card for political gain at home and abroad, the
incumbent AKP rebuts any criticism through a
27
TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 80, 03.04.2018
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil3/
ham/b08001h.htm
28 “Over 300,000 Syrians returned home after Turkey’s operations, interior minister says” Daily Sabah, 10.02.2019 https://www.dailysabah.com/
politics/2019/02/18/over-300000-syrians-returnedhome-after-turkeys-operations-interior-ministersays (accessed February 19, 2019).
29 TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, Session 87, 18.04.2018
https://www.tbmm.gov.tr/tutanak/donem26/yil3/
ham/b08701h.htm
30 Operation Euphrates Shield between 24 August
2016 and 27 March 2017, the ongoing Olive Branch
Operation since January 2018.
47
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Zeynep Yanaşmayan, Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Kaşlı
civilizationist populist discourse that selectively
extends the boundaries of ‘the people’. This
operates as a hegemonic populism that justifies
AKP policies towards Syrians and foreign policy
towards Syria through a discourse of brotherhood and references to a shared Ottoman legacy.
It is a hegemonic populism maintained by claiming the moral superiority of Turkey over the West,
which has long turned a blind eye to the human
costs of the Syrian crisis and the pressing needs
of forcibly displaced Syrians.
Conclusion
This article has provided an overview of the
debates on immigration in electoral politics in
Turkey and assessed the extent to which discourses on immigration in the context of the Syrian conflict have followed a populist line, as has
been the case in the Western world. Through
the analysis of an original dataset of political
statements between 2014 and 2018, our findings demonstrate that refugees have not been
a big part of public policy and electoral debates,
despite the increasing societal discontent, mediatization, and politicization around the presence
of refugees, particularly Syrians, in Turkey. The
anti-immigration rhetoric of political actors only
partially subscribes to the transnational populist
playbook of right-wing parties in Western democracies. Refugee reception policies are often criticized by the opposition in relation to political
parties’ take on key foreign policy issues, namely
the EU-Turkey migration diplomacy and AKP’s
Syria policy, within which security and criminalizing discourses are enmeshed. Opposition MPs
only resorted to economic threat discourses with
a nativist populist tone when Syrians were seen
as rivals in competition over scarce resources.
However, even for more contested issues, such
as granting citizenship to Syrians, opposition
MPs warned about the hostility and violence that
might target refugees, and hence refrained from
going too far. As we show in this paper, the key
reason for the selective use of anti-immigration
rhetoric is because the predominantly Sunni
Muslim Syrian refugees constitute ‘the ultimate
48
other’ for neither the Turkish public nor political actors. Refugees were instead seen as victims
of the conflict but mostly of the wrong policy
choices of the government.
Our findings indicate that even though a populist anti-immigrant discourse could be observed
in Turkey, it did not dominate the political opposition. The relative weakness of such discourse,
however, did not necessarily translate into discussions on integration and social cohesion but
fostered more discussions on return policies.
More importantly, we detected a civilizationist
populism competing with and countering the
Western-style anti-immigrant discourse. The
AKP MPs counter critiques of their refugee policies with populist discourse that has an Islamic
tone and is premised on moral superiority visa-vis the anti-immigrant West. Political opposition to the ruling party’s migration policies
did little to challenge this moral superiority
discourse; on the contrary, as many MHP and
CHP MPs’ statements indicate, they at times
affirmed it.
With its uninterrupted single-party rule for
almost 17 years now, AKP’s civilizationist populism has established a hegemonic populist discourse that keeps the main opposition parties at
bay and seems resilient to rights-based immigration discourse. This is a slippery slope for refugee rights, as it leaves the fate of the refugee
population to the discretion of the ruling party
and is highly contingent on the AKP’s definition
of ‘the people’ that, for the moment, selectively
includes Syrian refugees. Yet, it has been able
to define the parameters of political debates by
marginalizing rights-based approaches to immigration, which have only been embraced by HDP
cadres and a few CHP MPs. In this context, there
is always the danger of rights violations, including of the minimum right to non-refoulement31
that Syrian refugees have been enjoying, if the
31
Non-refoulement is a fundamental international
law principle that prohibits states from returning
people seeking international protection to a country
in which they would be in likely danger of facing persecution.
Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses
political cost of hosting refugees prevails in the
eyes of the government.32
Therefore, even though our findings are in line
with the literature which shows that a dominant
anti-immigrant discourse is independent of the
actual number of migrants in a country, it also
indicates that there might be other dynamics and
forms of populism behind the absence of such
rhetoric. Our discussion reveals that populist
political discourse may even seemingly be more
inclusive towards certain migrants depending
on the definition of ‘the people’. This does not
mean, however, that the populism and imagery
of ‘the people’ mobilized by the AKP is pluralist
per se, since it builds on the existing denial of the
religious and ethnic diversity of Turkey, privileging the dominant religious identity over others.
Hence, the Turkish case calls for more research
on political debates regarding immigration in
non-Western contexts receiving a relatively high
level of migrants and/or refugees and that are
already highly diverse. Such an endeavour would
potentially contribute to conceptualizing the
diversity of populisms, particularly its exclusionary and inclusionary features, and plurality of
‘the people’ around the issue of immigration that
builds on existing ethno-religious cleavages.
32
Recent crackdown on Syrians living in Istanbul
proves the slippery ground of rights-based approaches to international protection in Turkey: On July, 22
2019, the Istanbul Governorate issued a statement
and required Syrian nationals not registered in Istanbul returning to their province of registration saying
that those have not been registered will be transferred to provinces determined by the Interior Ministry. The statement coupled with reports on recent detention and deportation practices of Turkey, fostered
debates on the extent to which ongoing “voluntary returns to Syria” are indeed voluntary or forced. See for
instance Turkey Forcibly Returning Syrians to Danger,
Human Rights Watch, 26.07.2019 https://www.hrw.
org/news/2019/07/26/turkey-forcibly-returningsyrians-danger (access date 01.10.2019).
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
References
AKKERMAN, T., DE LANGE, S. and M. ROODUIJN
2016. (eds.) Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties
in Western Europe: Into the Mainstream?, London and New York: Routledge.
AKKERMAN, T. 2005. “Anti-immigration parties
and the defence of liberal values: The exceptional case of the List Pim Fortuyn”. Journal of Political Ideologies 10(3): 337-354.
ARDITI, B. 2007. Politics on the edges of liberalism:
Difference, populism, revolution, agitation. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press.
AYTAÇ, S. E. and Z. ÖNIŞ 2014. “Varieties of populism in a changing global context: The divergent
paths of Erdoğan and Kirchnerismo”. Comparative Politics 47(1):41-59.
AYTAÇ, S. E and E. ELÇI 2019. “Populism in Turkey”.
In: D. Stockemer (eds.) Populism Around the
World. Cham: Springer, 89-108.
BABAN, F., ILCAN, S. and K. RYGIEL 2017. “Syrian
refugees in Turkey: Pathways to precarity, differential inclusion, and negotiated citizenship
rights”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
43(1):41-57.
BAYKAN, T. 2014. “Halkçılık and Popülizm: “Official-Rational” versus “Popular” in the context
of “Turkish Exceptionalism”, SEI Working Paper
Series, no. 137.
BETZ, H-G and S. MERET 2009. “Revisiting Lepanto: the political mobilization against Islam in contemporary Western Europe”. Patterns of Prejudice 43(3-4):313-334.
BRUBAKER, R. 2017. “Between nationalism and
civilizationism: the European populist moment
in comparative perspective”. Ethnic and Racial
Studies 40(8): 1191-1226.
BRUBAKER, R. 2019. “Populism and nationalism.”
Nations and Nationalism, early view online.
CASTALDO, A. 2018. “Populism and competitive
authoritarianism in Turkey”. Southeast European
and Black Sea Studies 18(4):467-487.
ÇINAR, K. 2015. “Local Determinants of an Emerging Electoral Hegemony: The Case of Justice and
Development Party (AKP) in Turkey”. Democratization 23(7): 1-23.
DINÇŞAHIN, Ş. 2012. “A symptomatic analysis of
the Justice and Development Party’s populism in
Turkey, 2007-2010”. Government and Opposition
47(4): 618-640.
ELÇİ, E. “The Rise of Populism in Turkey: A Content
Analysis”. Southeast European and Black Sea
Studies, online version.
49
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Zeynep Yanaşmayan, Ayşen Üstübici and Zeynep Kaşlı
ERDOĞAN, M. 2017. Suriyeliler Barometresi: Suriyelilerle uyum içinde yaşamanın çerçevesi. Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi Universitesi Yayınları.
FLETCHER, E. 2008. “Changing Support for Asylum
Seekers: An Analysis of Legislation and Parliamentary Debates”. Sussex Centre for Migration
Research Working Paper no. 49.
GIDRON, N. and B. BONIKOWSKI 2013. “Varieties of Populism: Literature Review and Research
Agenda”. Waterhead Working Paper Series, No.
13-0004.
HADIZ, V. 2016. Islamic Populism in Indonesia and
the Middle East. Cambridge University Press.
HADIZ, V. R., and A. CHRYSSOUGELOS 2017.
“Populism in world politics: A comparative crossregional perspective”. International Political Science Review 38(4):399-411.
HOGAN, J. and K. HALTINNER 2015. “Floods, Invaders, and Parasites: Immigration Threat Narratives and Right-Wing Populism in the USA, UK
and Australia”. Journal of Intercultural Studies
36(5):520-543.
IGAM. 2019. Medya 18 Aylik İzleme Raporu: Ulusal ve Yerel Medyada Mülteci ve Göç Haberleri,
01.06.2017-30.11.2018.
ILGIT, A. and F. MEMIŞOĞLU 2018. “Contesting
Refugees in Turkey: Political Parties and the Syrian Refugees”. In: D.E. Utku, K.O. Unutulmaz and
I. Sirkeci (eds.) Turkey’s Syrians today and tomorrow. London: Transnational Press, 81-99.
ICDUYGU, A., USTUBICI, A., ARAL, I. and B. AYAR
2017. “Legitimising settlement of refugees: unpacking humanitarianism from a comparative
perspective”. Geografie, 122(4):449-475.
KAYA, A., ROBERT M-V. and A. TECMEN 2019.
“Populism in Turkey and France: nativism, multiculturalism and Euroskepticism”. Turkish Studies,
early view online.
KNIGGE, P. 1998. “The ecological correlates of
right-wing extremism in Western Europe”. European Journal of Political Research 34(1): 249-279.
50
MUDDE, C. 2004. “The Populist Zeitgeist”. Government and Opposition 39 (4):542-563.
MUDDE, C. 2013. “The 2012 Stein Rokkan Lecture.
Three Decades of Populist Radical Right Parties
in Western Europe: So What?” European Journal
of Political Research 52(1):1-19.
MUDDE, C. & R. KALTWASSER, C.2013. “Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism: Comparing Contemporary Europe and Latin America”. Government and Opposition, 48(2), 147-174.
MÜLLER, J. W. 2016. What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
RYDGREN, J. 2005. “Is extreme right-wing populism contagious? Explaining the emergence of a
new party family”. European journal of political
research 44(3):413-437.
SOMER, M. 2017. “Conquering versus democratizing the state: Political Islamists and fourth wave
democratization in Turkey and Tunisia”. Democratization 24(6):1025-1043.
STAVRAKAKIS, Y., KATSAMBEKIS, G., NIKISIANIS,
N., KIOUPKIOLIS, A. and T. SIOMOS 2017. “Extreme right-wing populism in Europe: revisiting
a reified association”. Critical Discourse Studies,
14(4):420-439.
STOCKEMER, D. 2016. “Structural data on immigration or immigration perceptions? What accounts for the electoral success of the radical
right in Europe?” Journal of Common Market
Studies 54(4):999-1016.
SUNATA, U. and E. YILDIZ 2018. “Representation
of Syrian refugees in the Turkish media.” Journal
of Applied Journalism & Media Studies 7(1): 129151.
YABANCI, B. 2016. “Populism as the problem child
of democracy: the AKP’s enduring appeal and
the use of meso-level actors”. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 16(4):591-617
VAN SPANJE, J. 2011. “The wrong and the right: A
comparative analysis of “anti-immigration” and
“far right” parties”. Government and Opposition
46(3):293-320.
Under the Shadow of Civilizationist Populist Discourses
NEW DIVERSITIES 21 (2), 2019
Note on the Authors
Zeynep Yanaşmayan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Law and Anthropology,
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany and the coordinator of the
Max Planck Society-funded research initiative ‘The Challenges of Migration, Integration and
Exclusion’ (WiMi). She is the author of The Migration of Highly Educated Turkish Citizens
to Europe: From Guestworkers to Global Talent (Routledge, 2019). Her research interests
include migration and mobility studies, citizenship, governance of religious diversity and law
and society studies.
Email: yanasmayan@eth.mpg.de
Ayşen Üstüb İc İ is currently an Assistant Professor at Koç University Department of
Sociology and the Department of Political Science. She is the author of The Governance of
International Migration: Irregular Migrants’ Access to Right to Stay in Turkey and Morocco
(University of Amsterdam Press, 2018). Her areas of interest are international migration,
irregular migration, externalization of border management, and social cohesion.
Email: austubici@ku.edu.tr
Zeynep Kaşlı is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Public Administration &
Sociology at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, working on the Horizon 2020 ReSOMA
and Cities of Migration projects. Her main areas of research and expertise are migration
and citizenship, with a specific focus on theories, practices and multi-level governance of
borders, mobility and diversity. She was a guest editor for the special issue of Movements
Journal for Critical Migration and Border Studies on Turkey’s migration regime.
Email: kasli@essb.eur.nl
51