Populism, victimhood and Turkish foreign policy under AKP rule

ABSTRACT This article explores how notions of conservative populism animate Turkish foreign policy. It explicates the construction of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ in conservative populism and how it became the dominant or hegemonic discourse of the AKP regime. While demonstrating various aspects of the peculiar conservative populism, the paper will try to point out the specific governmental ethos that conservative populism generates in the case of the AKP. By emphasizing how conservative populism is intermingled with Turkish-Islamist ideology, the paper explores the background of the AKP’s pro-active and assertive foreign policy as well as the devastating effects of the de-institutionalization of the bureaucratic state structure and decision-making mechanisms.