Article detail · 2018
Religious solidarity, historical mission and moral superiority: construction of external and internal ‘others’ in AKP’s discourses on Syrian refugees in Turkey
Journal
Critical Discourse Studies- Year
- 2018
- Type
- article
Data source split
- YÖKSİS venue Critical Discourse Studies
- OpenAlex OpenAlex enrichment (abstract, citations, topics)
Abstract
OpenAlex · English
Turkey hosts the world’s largest community of displaced Syrians. According to UNHCR, there are more than 3 million registered Syrians in Turkey as of 2018. Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has followed an open-door policy, which was accompanied by a discourse emphasizing religious solidarity and humanitarian values. However, the arrival of Syrian refugees has become entangled with the existing identity debates and conflicts in Turkish politics. The AKP’s discourse on Syrian refugees has become intertwined with its positive self-representation as the defender of all oppressed people (mazlum) and its attempts to reconstruct the Turkish nation along more Islamic lines. The article analyses parliamentary debates and presidential speeches in order to unravel AKP discourses on Syrian refugees. Drawing upon the Discourse Historical Approach in Critical Discourse Analysis, the article puts forward two arguments. First, the refugee issue has become a constitutive component of AKP identity and a discursive tool to reconstruct the nation along more Islamic lines. Second, Turkey’s refugee policy has become a source of pride and enabled the AKP to claim moral superiority both vis-à-vis the West and its political opponents at home.
Topics
Citations
OpenAlex cited_by_count. Not a WoS or Scopus citation count; those sources have no separate column here.
71 citations
OpenAlex cited_by_count (cache / database)
21 publications in the local catalog that cite this work (OpenAlex reference match; not the full global list).
- Framing Syrian refugees in Turkish politics: a qualitative analysis on party group speeches 2022
- How do local actors interpret, enact and contest policy? An analysis of local government responses to meeting the needs of Syrian refugees in Turkey 2020
- Political Discourse and Public Attitudes toward Syrian Refugees in Turkey 2021
- How does multi-level governance create capacity to address refugee needs, and with what limitations? An analysis of municipal responses to Syrian refugees in Istanbul 2021
- Does Islamic Inclusion of Syrians Represent A Real Challenge to Europe's Security Approach?: Dilemmas of the AKP's Syrian Rafugee Discourse 2021
- Teacher candidates' ideological tensions and covert metaphors about Syrian refugees in Turkey: Critical discourse analysis of telecollaboration 2022
- Flexible Nation: The Turkish Nation under the Justice and Development Party’s Rule 2021
- Discourses of Inclusion and Exclusion towards Syrian Refugees in Turkey: a Psychoanalytic Approach 2025
- Syrian Refugees and Turkish Political Parties: Domestic Interests Versus Universal Values 2020
- Redefining the self: Turkey's Syria policy through ontological security dynamics 2025