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Bilge Yabancı is Marie Curie fellow at Northwestern University (USA) and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy). She researches social movements and civil society under autocratization. Her research also covers populism, populism-religion relationship, and the role of affect and performance in political mobilization. Previously, she was Open Society fellow as a part of the human rights cohort of the OSF fellowship program in 2017-19 and a Swedish Institute post-doctoral fellow.
Religion, Nationalism, and Populism in Turkey Under the AKP
Over its two decades in power, the AKP has shaped relations between different social groups in Turkey based on religious belonging. It altered people’s perceptions of national identity by making “being a Muslim Turk” more appealing for many at home and abroad, and created new public spaces and collective memories embellished with national heroism sacralized by religious references. Moving beyond Turkey’s oft-cited secular-pious cleavage, this paper aims to shed light on the AKP’s complex relationship with religion through the lens of nationalism, populism, and performance as a means of political mobilization.
