Is nationalism on the rise in Turkey?

The argument that nationalism is on the rise in Turkey should be assessed on two different levels.

The first is whether interest and support for nationalism as a political identity is increasing, perhaps analogous to the strong wave seen in Europe. The second is the traditional state reflex of nationalism, especially its influence on the People’s Alliance between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and broader politics. 

We can consider the reflection of nationalism on the government and the tendencies affecting voter behaviour as two qualitative and quantitative axes. Naturally, the two have aspects that directly affect or contradict each other. The most striking example of this is that while the People's Alliance adheres to an extremely nationalist line, the AKP cannot be considered a fully nationalist party.

The AKP has become an organisation that uses nationalism in its governance and among its base, and to one that it is beholden in return. We see traces of this tension in current disagreements within the ruling bloc. Another source of the claim is that its expanding voter base is related to nationalism's bargaining power in real politics, although this is somewhat speculative. Since everyone resorts to nationalism, there is a debate about who actually represents this identity, as well as a diversity of positions and an excess of nationalist parties. 

In Turkey, nationalism is represented in various forms and doses in all parties, political movements and institutions, in addition to being an independent political identity. However, if we are to discuss a rise in nationalism, it is necessary to consider the parties who specifically brandish this label. The list of these parties, three of which are represented in parliament, is long.

The MHP has represented the traditional nationalist line for 57 years and now supports President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration within a framework that can be called the beka davası, or existential struggle. The Great Unity Party (BBP) was founded in 1992 when segments with Islamist sensitivities left the MHP. It is also part of the ruling alliance. The Turkey Alliance Party was founded by former MHP member Sinan Oğan, who ran as an independent in the 2023 presidential election before supporting Erdoğan in the second round. The Good Party (İYİ) was founded in 2017 after an opposition movement within the MHP was expelled from the party the year before. Although İYİ positioned itself as a centre-right party following a secular Republican line, it has gradually increased the dose of nationalism. The Victory Party (ZP), on the other hand, includes a cohort that initially left the MHP with İYİ members before breaking off on its own. It focuses on migration and has strong racist overtones. Apart from these, two leading former İYİ officials, former party spokesman Yavuz Ağıralioğlu and former lawmaker Yusuf Halaçoğlu, who was previously the president of the Turkish Historical Society, are preparing to establish a new party. Additionally, Tuğrul Türkeş the son of the MHP's founding chairman Alparslan Türkeş, is an AKP lawmaker and has proposed forming a league of nationalist parties. The National Path Party (MYP), founded by a group that left the BBP, and the Republican Patriotic Party (CVP), which claims to follow a nationalist line, can also be added to the list. The Eurasianist and Maoist Patriotic Party (VP), which defends the harshest nationalist policies and supports Erdoğan, should not be omitted from this list.

In this article, I will argue that despite the excessive enthusiasm and popularity its excessive activity enjoys as a topic of discussion, as illustrated in the preceding paragraph, nationalism is not undergoing a radical innovation nor is it especially on the rise, in terms of its clout in the administration of the state or in a change in voter tendencies.

On both points, we can talk about obsolescence and a chronic blockage. Turkish nationalism has always existed as the dominant state politics, under the influence of the dynamics of the country’s birth and development. Among voters, it has found significant support since the 1970s. Those who have ruled the country, especially in times of crisis, have embraced nationalism as an ideological defence against real or imagined internal and external enemies. In the last 10 years of AKP rule, Erdoğan, who had previously said that he had “been trampled upon nationalism”, has resorted to using the same shield, through a partnership with the MHP, to solve his own political crisis following the failed military coup of 2016. It set about building a nationalist-spiritual bloc with a policy of polarisation and marginalisation that is centred on the Kurdish issue and the yerli-milli (native and national) discourse, in which yerli, or native, expresses independence from foreign influence and milli, or national, sets boundaries to exclude some in Turkey from the nation. As such, the People’s Alliance is a contemporary version of the Nationalist Front coalition governments of the 1970s or the notion of a “Turkish-Islamic synthesis” put forth during the September 12, 1980, coup.

Two important elections coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic’s founding: presidential and parliamentary elections in 2023 and municipal elections in 2024. The general view from a nationalist perspective is as follows: The MHP maintained its share of the vote in 2023 and increased its pressure on the ruling party with aggressive forays. İYİ remained in the opposition alliance in 2023, despite threatening briefly to leave, but was unable to motivate its voters. In 2024, it did leave the alliance and suffered a serious decline in votes. ZP and other nationalist groupings backed the independent Oğan in the first round of the presidential election, in which he took 5 per cent of the vote. He then announced his support of Erdoğan in the second round, while the ZP backed the main opposition candidate, former CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in the second round. 

The government’s success in provoking nationalist sentiment against the Kurdish political movement’s support for the opposition had a significant impact on the CHP’s results. However, in the 2024 municipal elections, voters rejected the nationalist opposition that played on the allergy towards Kurds and attacked the CHP as if it were the incumbent party, as well as the ruling party’s familiar polarising themes. Instead, the CHP, which had replaced Kılıçdaroğlu as chairman, became the biggest party and expanded into new parts of Turkey. It is worth noting that the CHP is now one of the biggest centre-left parties in Europe, in terms of vote share.  

Is there an increase in nationalist voting and grassroots dynamics?

Looking at the 2023 and 2024 elections, especially the differences between the two, offers a new perspective and opportunities in many respects, but it does not indicate a growing trend and popularisation of nationalism. On the contrary, it shows that the blockage in nationalism has become lasting, with its singular appeal to negative motivations, lack of independent politics and, most importantly, limited ability beyond reactionaryism. 

In everyday political discussions, the claim that nationalism is rising implies that its voter base has expanded. In the 2023 general election, the ruling alliance’s MHP did not lose as many votes as had been expected, İYİ retained its share, the ZP appeared to gain ground and nationalist actors aggressively played the role of spoiler in the presidential vote. These were all interpreted, and even marketed, as an expansion of the nationalist voter base.

However, the numbers fail to prove a genuine new rise. It would be more accurate to talk about a level of nationalist voting that, while susceptible to fluctuations, has a consistent or stable base. 

The combined share of votes for the MHP, İYİ, ZP and BBP, which label themselves nationalist parties and are accepted as such by voters, in 2023 stood at 22 per cent, near the rate of 21 per cent in the previous general election in 2018. Even in the 1999 election, the votes of the MHP and BBP totalled 19.5 per cent. Therefore, it is not correct to infer an increase from such small fluctuations. 

In the 2024 local election, nationalist parties’ total votes do not indicate a steady increase but may even experience dramatic declines, shrinking down to an ideological base, contingent on external factors. The loyalty of voters who belong to or feel close to this political identity is not as steadfast as is exaggerated. The disparity between the voting masses that are receptive to nationalist discourse and those who consciously adhere to this political identity and pin their hopes for the future on it was in clear view in the two elections. From this perspective, the statistics reveal a stabilising range of votes over the last quarter-century, since the 1990s, in which voters loyal to nationalist parties stand at about 10 to 15 per cent, with the potential to expand to approximately 20 to 25 per cent. Additionally, the failure of İYİ and ZP, which rely on urban and secular constituencies, to meet their expected potential and instead remain below 10 per cent shows the preponderance of nationalist voters remaining in the (politically barren) provinces. 

If one is looking for an example of a boom in nationalist votes, one should look to the 1990s, when the MHP increased its votes tenfold (from 1.9 per cent in 1989 to 18 per cent in 1999) and expanded from the Anatolian countryside to the west, big cities and the coasts. While centrist parties began to decline in the mid-1990s, parties on the far right prospered. Along with AKP's predecessor, the Welfare Party, this was when the MHP experienced a rapid increase in votes.

It is clear that the harsh Kurdish policies by governments at that time had a great impact by providing nationalism with the enemy that it needed. Furthermore, the military’s intervention against the government led by the Islamist Welfare Party on February 28, 1997, also helped pave the way for the MHP. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, endeavours such as the Young Party, which rode a pop nationalist wave that capitalised on the potential of the apathetic urban poor, found surprising support. That’s why it would be far more precise to consider the late 1990s as the point with a real jump in nationalist voting. Today, the attempts to retain these levels have become more irresolute and the dynamics upon which they feed have become worn out. 

How new is the influence of nationalism on government and politics?

The weight of nationalism in politics in Turkey, even as a determining factor in the ruling and opposition blocs, is not new. Its political influence, which outweighs its grassroots support, is a very old phenomenon that results from the characteristics of the birth and development of Turkish nationalism. The beka davası results from the social and political trauma of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse and is part of the genetic code of Turkish political culture and the state. The existential struggle refers to various “internal and external enemies” at different times, taking the form of animosity towards the West, anti-Semitism, hatred of Communism or an aversion to Kurds. 

Nationalism can be found in the building blocks of the Turkish Republic 100 years ago. Nationalist provocations accompanied an anti-Greek pogrom on September 6-7, 1955, efforts to liquidate the non-Muslim population, the nationalisation of private property and eliciting internal support during periods of international tension. During the Cold War, the NATO-centred anticommunism strategy, including its extrajudicial components, was shaped by nationalism and nationalist cadres. These events left strong traces in the culture of the Turkish right and were used to make its ideological wings, Islamism and nationalism, more mainstream. 

More recently, the polarising yerli-milli rhetoric of the AKP-MHP ruling alliance has employed this history. At the same, nationalism is a primary element of the Republican ideology of the nation’s founding party, the CHP. Conspiratorial anti-Westernism, inspired by anti-imperialism, produced a branch of nationalism called ulusalcılık. A new strain of hostility towards foreigners or migrants has also emerged in recent years, under the banner of the refugee issue. 

A current topic of debate is how the MHP, an unofficial coalition partner, has become highly influential, especially on security and judicial policies. The conventional wisdom is that Erdoğan was forced to work with the MHP because he needed a simple majority of votes to maintain his presidency and that the MHP has a serious cadre of followers within the state. However, the MHP has been in close concert with the state at every level since its inception. Domestic and foreign policy that has a high potential for reactionaryism, such as the Kurdish issue, anticommunism or anti-EU sentiment, are demarcated by red lines controlled MHP.

In the 1970s, the MHP had enough clout with right-wing governments to lend its name to the alliance the Nationalist Front, even though it had a far lower share of the vote than it does today. The party was an unofficial partner to the government that rolled out harsh policies towards the Kurds in the 1990s. It was part of a formal coalition with the centre-left Democratic Left Party (DSP) in the early 2000s. Throughout this time, nationalist cadres have been active within the state. Nationalism is a valid label and, at times, almost an obligation in the eyes of the state.

The influence of nationalism on parties that constitute the opposition today, primarily the CHP, has a long history. Nationalism was an important element in the founding ideology of the republic. That one of the six arrows in the emblem of the CHP, which was the state party for decades, represents nationalism is not merely symbolic. However, this is not enough to label the CHP a nationalist party, just as that label does not apply to the AKP.

On foreign policy, such as the Cyprus issue, the CHP has frequently resorted to nationalism. It has also employed leftwing versions of traditional anti-Western sentiment. If we were only to examine the first decade of AKP rule, from 2002 to 2011, we see that the CHP – sometimes in its entirety, sometimes its impactful wing - was in close contact with those nationalists who were the fiercest opponents of European Union membership and resolving the Kurdish issue. In 2014, the MHP and CHP put forward a joint presidential candidate to run against Erdoğan. After leaving the MHP in 2017, İYİ became powerful enough as the second-biggest party in the opposition bloc to express its demands - albeit ultimately overridden - in determining the presidential candidate, for an equal say with the CHP and to exclude the Kurdish political movement from the alliance. In the second round of the 2023 presidential election, Kılıçdaroğlu did not hesitate to cooperate with the leader of the ZP, known for his racist outbursts, reportedly promising him the portfolios of the Interior Ministry and the National Intelligence Organisation. Aspects of this alliance with the ZP can be explained by the panic of losing the first round, exacerbated by the stance of nationalist candidate Oğan, but the impact of the “nationalism is on the rise” argument can also be seen as a factor.

There was no rise, and though a rapid decline has not begun, the crisis is deepening

In addition to the fact that nationalism has not seen a quantitative or qualitative rise, it is obvious that is in the throes of intellectual and political stagnation and does not have as much initiative as presumed. It can be said that Turkey’s nationalist parties are traditionally uninclined and untalented in politics. Although there are serious internal debates over ideology, it is unclear where the various parties differ on economic, social and foreign policy issues and what they propose as solutions. Neither their party members nor their supporters are convincingly interested in these matters.

In nationalism, it is always more important to determine boundaries (prohibitions) rather than goals (dreams). It is always more comfortable to draw the red lines of the state; that is, to keep the idea (nationalist sensitivities) in power at all times and to be the bearer of reactions that keep society on its guard. Criticism of the state does not go beyond it being in the “wrong hands” or at risk of damaging its reputation because of incompetent administrators. Even the political function of nationalism, which is limited to compensating for the shortcomings of the state or political alliances, is not a consideration. Nationalism only offers to fill the gaps of political incapacity. As a bargaining tool, this increases its fragility.

The beka davası argument has become political tutelage, taking politics hostage with its reliance on the Kurdish issue and migration, and plays a major role in the failure of nationalism to attain an independent political character. The names of the enemy may change, but an existential threat and the enemies derived from it remain constant, determining the political path of nationalists. The nationalist cause of nizam-ı alem, or the idea of bringing order to the world, can never supersede the motto Devlet Ebed Müddet, or the ideal of a single, permanent and eternal state. The beka davası, which prioritises keeping the state strong under all circumstances, produces pressure and fear, whose source is unclear. Apprehensions gleaned from history, adorned with conspiracy theories, embellished with fixations, dangerous marginalisation and antagonism and unlimited pragmatism are in excessive use. 

The AKP-MHP alliance's equating the survival of the government with the survival of the nation is accompanied by a “heroism” that is disconnected from reality and compatible with the post-truth era. Majoritarianism has become the criterion of stability, and anything can be used as material for security concerns. In order to stay in power, Erdoğan essentially ran a campaign that cost the AKP and boosted the MHP in both the 2023 and 2024 elections. In the 2024 vote, the instrumental support of nationalism magnified the AKP's dramatic defeat. What happens next will be determined by the tension between this obligation and the flexibility, or the normalisationi, required to repair the damage incurred by the government. The initial indications are that the needle is swinging to the “old normal,” rather than normalisation.

The opposition lost the 2023 election, which it believed it would win, over debates about the presidential candidate and government-directed nationalist provocations. Some arguments combined these reasons with the opinion that nationalism is on the rise. The prominence of Kurds and Alevis in the opposition, which the nationalists turned into an issue, was blamed for the defeat. It was surmised that inadequate representation of nationalism in the opposition was behind the failure. And yet the CHP entered the 2024 election motivated to change, including by replacing its chairman, and won an unexpected victory. Even nationalist parties’ voters who had swung the 2023 vote chose to rally behind the CHP in 2024. 

Several factors can be cited for this outcome, but the picture that emerges through the nationalist lens is that the CHP did not form an alliance or a pact with a nationalist party and it did not create any obligations for itself. It did not emphasize nationalism in its general campaign, even if some of its candidates did turn to nationalism in their specific campaigns. 

On the other hand, the retaliatory strategy of those nationalist parties campaigning independently to make the CHP lose failed. Claims that the migrant issue would cause a surge in votes for nationalist parties proved empty. The assertion that electoral success cannot be achieved without a bargain with the institutional representatives of nationalism has weakened. It became apparent that the stamp of nationalism was not stronger than the demand for solutions and a change in power.  

It is highly likely that the burden of nationalism on the CHP will now increase due to the favour of its new voters and the realities of the new parts of the country where it has extended its reach. Yet the likelihood that the government will revert to its restrictive practices instead of normalising, and the CHP’s self-possessed opposition to the replacement of some mayors from the pro-Kurdish DEM party with trustees after the 2024 vote raises hopes it can manage this burden. An example of this can be seen in the Union of Municipalities, which elected Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu of the CHP as president and both DEM and nationalist mayors to its board. 

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  Editor's note: The new political stance reportedly adopted by the ruling AK Party after coming in second in the local elections on March 30 is being referred to in this way by the Turkish public. The term 'normalization' refers to direct, leader-level meetings with the opposition, taking the opposition's views into account on certain selected issues that will determine the country's fate, and a noticeable softening of authoritarian tendencies. The prevailing view is that the motivation behind the AK Party's normalization efforts is to garner support for the new constitution process.