Description
Following its reformist years (2002-2008), The Justice and Development Party (JDP) has gradually transformed itself into a hegemonic power in Turkish politics. Articulated based on the already-existing hegemonic discourses (e.g., religion, nationalism, militarism, masculinity) in Turkish politics, the JDP elites have articulated a populist discourse on family and family values. What is central to this populist discourse is the idea that the strength of a nation lies in its families and the strength of families lies in the number of their children. In this articulation, the idea of strong family is inextricably linked with ontological security of the nation and state. Building upon this idea, the populist discourse is two-layered. On the one hand, on multiple occasions, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – the leader of the JDP – has called Turkish citizens to have at least three children while simultaneously arguing that strong families lead to strong nations. On the other hand, Erdogan frequently encourages early marriage and criticizes childless women by locating the practice of abortion and LGBT communities as a source on ontological insecurity. Based on this logic, Turkey has recently withdrawn from the landmark Istanbul Convention on women’s rights by articulating the reason for withdrawal as “preservation of traditional family values”. Against this background, the central focus of this article is to reflect upon and problematize the populist discourse on family and the assumed link between strong family and strong nation. To do so, the paper draws on the Post-foundational Theory of Discourse (PTD) and Ontological Security Theory (OST).
