Understanding Inward-Looking Nationalism: An Instrumentalist Approach in Analyzing the Discourse of The People’s Alliance in Turkey¹

Many theories, approaches, definitions have been laid down for the understanding of nationalism, which simultaneously produces many questions to answer later on. One of the recent debates is the ‘inward looking’ nature of nationalism. Whether it is the recent pandemic, Brexit, or alarming rates of Islamophobia in the West with an identitarian populist flavor, the issue pertains to nationalism, or for some, nativism. Contemporaneously with an ‘inward looking’ instrumentalist nature, it uncovers new debates arising out of the conflicts in today’s nation-states. One of these appears to be the ruling coalition known as the ‘People’s Alliance’ (de facto alliance between the Justice and Development party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) and the National Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) in Turkey thanks to its nationalist rhetoric, yet with an ‘inward looking’ direction. The deepening of polarization is causing a mutual fear, mistrust, and antipathy among the people in Turkey. As the coalition aims to re-invigorate the nation, its opponents are claiming it is a dissemination of hatred. This political rift is deepening via the political discourse and atmosphere. The goal of this paper is to inquire into this via a critical discourse analysis. The study analyzes the discourse of the party leaders forming the People’s Alliance. This discourse displays an inward-looking nationalist rhetoric, circling around three prominent issues: the proclamation of opponents as traitors via a blame shifting rhetoric; the protection of the fate of the coalition as the savior of the country; and finally, the determination of who adheres to the nation or not via the native and national (yerli ve milli) debate.