
Received 28.12.2022. Revised 27.02.2023. Accepted 31.03.2023.
Acknowledgements. The research was supported by Russian Science Foundation (project No. 22-78-10014).
Abstract. After 2010, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) returned the concept of “New Turkey” to the official political vocabulary. This return took place against the backdrop of such changes in Turkish foreign and domestic policies that gave observers grounds to talk of Erdogan’s “revolution” and compare it with the “revolution” of Ataturk. Although Erdogan’s “New Turkey” is largely thought of as a project significantly opposite to Ataturk’s “New Turkey”, in fact, both these projects are in a complex and confusing relationship with each other. Despite all the differences between them, they intend to make Turkey a member of the club of the leading powers that shape the basic contours of the world order. However, while Ataturk tried to achieve this goal by integrating Turkey to the Western world, Erdogan seeks to make the “New Turkey” one of the centers of the emerging post-Western world order. Despite the ongoing changes in Turkey and the AKP’s narrative of a successful transition from “Old” to “New” Turkey, the model of a new political order, which is seen as post-Kemalist, post-Western and post-Westphalian, is still poorly theorized. The understanding of modernity offered by the AKP is vague, fluid and contains many uncertainties. This article examines the case of Erdogan’s “New Turkey” as an example of finding one’s own path to modernity based on the simultaneous rejection and selective use of the Kemalist legacy.
Keywords: “New Turkey”, R. T. Erdogan, AKP, Westernization, M. K. Ataturk, Kemalism, Colonialism, Post-Western world order
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