Religion and Nation are One: Social Identity Complexity and the Roots of Turkish National Identity

• In Event: 247 - Regular Session. Redefining the Public Sphere in the Middle East

Abstract

Turkish nationalism has long been an enigma for scholars interested in the formation of national identity. The nationalist movement that succeeded in crafting the Republic of Turkey relied upon rhetoric that defined the nation in explicitly secular, civic, and territorial terms. Though the earliest scholarship on Turkish nationalism supported this perspective, more recent research has pointed to Turkey's efforts to religiously and ethnically homogenize the new state as evidence of the importance of ethnicity, and particularly religion, in constructing Turkish national identity. This article draws upon historical research and social identity complexity theory to analyze the seeming dichotomy between religious and civic definitions of the Turkish nation. I argue that the subjective overlap between religious and civic ingroups explains the persistence of religious definitions of the nation despite the Turkish nationalist movement's civic rhetoric, and explains much of the Turkish state's intolerance toward and mistreatment of religious minorities in its early decades.

Author

• Gregory Goalwin, University of California, Santa Barbara