A Second Foundation? Constitution, Nation-Building, and the Deepening of Authoritarianism in Turkey

In the aftermath of the June 2015 elections, Turkey entered a new phase, which can be defined as a reemphasis of the default settings of the republic: one state, one nation, one flag, one language. This chapter argues that ethnic homogenization and the (re)imagination of the people according to a Schmittian friend/enemy distinction powered both historical periods. To assess the return of the 1930s in Turkey under the AKP, and then the reinvention of the Turkish nation under Atatürk and Erdogan, the paper focuses on parallels and similarities between then and now regarding the perception of the Kurdish issue as a security question and the narration of the state as being under an existential threat by domestic enemies. We examine the recent shift toward policies of ethnic and societal homogenization under Erdogan as an object lesson in continuities from early years of the republic.