Turkish Nationalism from the Perspective of Political Psychology: Rethinking Gokalp
Melih Nadi TutanPolitical Psychology emerged as a discipline that examines political phenomena from a psychological perspective and produced various concepts and theories about nationalism. Thus, it shows that Turkish nationalism can be examined from the perspective of Political Psychology. At the same time, there are debates and different approaches around explaining the nationalism in the literature of nationalism. In this context, the purpose of this study is to evaluate Turkish nationalism through theories of Political Psychology within the frame of an ethno-symbolist approach. To that end, theories about the group formation and images have been cited from primary and secondary sources. Thoughts of Ziya Gokalp, who took an important place in Turkish political thought in terms of nationalism have been evaluated with social identity and image theories from an ethno-symbolist approach. In this evaluation two of the works, Turkification, Islamisation, Modernisation (Turklesmek, Islamlasmak, Muasirlasmak) and the Principles of Turkism (Turkculugun Esaslari) in which the notion of nationalism came to the fore have been assessed by using a discourse analysis method. At the end of the work it will show that from a Political Psychology perspective, Gokalp’s conceptualisation of Turkish nationalism indicates a social identity on an ethnical basis and corresponds to an inner-group which has a high in-group solidarity and out-group discrimination, which is nationalistic in attitude and develops exemplary (ornek), rogue and excluded (dislanmis) images against the outer-groups.
Siyaset Psikolojisi Perspektifinden Türk Milliyetçiliği: Gökalp’i Yeniden Düşünmek
Melih Nadi TutanSiyaset Psikolojisi, siyasal olguları psikolojik bir bakışla inceleyen bir disiplin olarak ortaya çıkarken, milliyetçilik konusunda da farklı kavram ve kuramlar üretmiştir. Siyaset Psikolojisinde milliyetçilik konusu, genellikle Sosyal Psikolojinin alanına dâhil olan toplumsal kimlik kuramlarıyla incelenmiştir. Bununla birlikte çalışmada ele alınacak olan Türk milliyetçiliğine dair Gökalp’in tasavvurlarında, yine çalışmada değerlendirilecek olan ve kalıpyargılar gibi işlev gören imgeler de göze çarpmaktadır. Bu, Türk milliyetçiliğinin de Siyaset Psikolojisi perspektifiyle incelenebileceğini göstermektedir. Aynı zamanda milliyetçilik literatüründe de, milliyetçiliğin açıklanması etrafında tartışmalar, farklı yaklaşımlar bulunmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, çalışmanın amacı etnosembolist yaklaşım çerçevesinde, Türk milliyetçiliğini Siyaset Psikolojisi kuramlarıyla değerlendirmektir. Bu bağlamda toplumsal kimlik ve imge kuramlarıyla, milliyetçilik literatüründeki farklı yaklaşımların birbirleriyle nasıl eklemlenebileceği de çalışmanın kapsamında yer almaktadır. Bu amaçla, grup oluşumuna ilişkin kuramlar ve imge kuramları birincil ve ikincil kaynaklar ile aktarılmış, Türk siyasal düşüncesinde milliyetçilik konusunda temel bir yer teşkil eden Ziya Gökalp’in fikirleri, etno-sembolist yaklaşımdan yola çıkılarak, toplumsal kimlik ve imge kuramlarıyla değerlendirilmiştir. Bu değerlendirmede, Türk siyasal düşüncesinde milliyetçiliğin fikir babalarından biri sayılan Gökalp’in milliyetçilik tasavvurunun öne çıktığı iki çalışması olarak Türkleşmek, İslamlaşmak, Muasırlaşmak ve Türkçülüğün Esasları adlı eserleri bir söylem analizi metoduyla takip edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Çalışmanın sonunda, Gökalp’in Türk milliyetçiliği anlayışının Siyaset Psikolojisi bakışıyla, etnik bir zeminde toplumsal kimlik ifade ettiği, iç-grup kaynaşması ve dış-grup ayrımcılığı yüksek, tutum olarak milliyetçi ve dışgruplara karşı örnek, haydut ve dışlanmış imgeler geliştiren bir iç-gruba tekabül ettiği görülmüştür.
Political Psychology as a discipline tries to explain the interrelation between the political and the psychological, and hence includes comprehensive topics such as political behaviour, mass media, genocide, nationalism, terrorism etc. It can be seen that Political Philosophy which takes a key role in forming the discipline of Politics embodies “the human” at the core of its arguments. Therefore, having been one of the main subjects of this study, nationalism can be understood with reference to Political Psychology. So much so that in Political Psychology, nationalism has been studied in relation to social identity theory, attitudes, emotions and so on that concern how “the individual” becomes a passionate member of a “nationalist group”.
Having been put forward by Henri Tajfel and John Turner, social identity theory which will be beneficial in this study suggests some concepts to understand inner-group formation while it objects to realistic conflict theory which was published by Muzafer Sherif and others. Social identity theory states that individuals have become members of inner-groups formed by them and perceive the other groups as outer-groups even if there is not any goal about cooperation or competition opposed to realistic conflict theory. Absence of any competition or commitment between members of the group is defined as a minimal group paradigm. Even in these circumstances Tajfel and Turner agreed that it can be seen in-group favouritism and out-group discrimination with reference to a series of experiments carried out by them.
While Tajfel and Turner were answering the question of “why do individuals favour their in-group and discriminate outer-groups at the risk of acting unfairly?” by emphasizing the importance of motivations, Turner gave weight to self-categorising processes in his following studies. According to social identity theory, the sense of inner-group belonging makes several impacts on members. These are individual mobility, social creativity, and social competition. When it comes to these social strategies it should be noted that prejudices take an important place.
Following the experiments, it was shown that individuals with high nationalist attitudes were more likely to produce prejudices against outer-groups in comparison to individuals with low nationalist attitudes. It shows that nationalists as inner-groups tend to develop much more prejudices, while their in-group is providing a basis for transforming those prejudices to stereotypes. At this very point it encounters with image theory. According to image theory, images function as stereotypes in a very similar way. Briefly, nationalism does not just accelerate in-group favouritism and out-group discrimination but also paves the way for transforming prejudices to stereotypes in so doing.
When it comes to the literature of nationalism, it can be said that a modernist approach which concludes that “the nationalism precedes ‘the nation’”, in other words, the idea of nationalism is used to constitute the nation, taking the dominant role in studies. The modernist approach seems to be more suitable in an attempt to explain nationalism in the frame of Political Psychology because of its coherence with minimal group paradigm. However, ethno-symbolism does not stand in contrast to the minimal group paradigm either. Moreover, it clarifies in-group favouritism while referring to the nation as an ethnical group in which homogeneous identities are concentrated. Thus, it can be seen from ethnic identities in texts of Ziya Gokalp, who was one of the originators of Turkish nationalism.
In the first place, Gokalp sees Turks as a group that realises themselves when they knew about their “national responsibilities” and said, “I exist”. In alignment with social identity theory, according to Gokalp people who take place in the same civilisation must bring respect to each other. In his words, saying that Turks must love each other to strengthen national solidarity, can be seen in-group solidarity. Gokalp favours Turks frequently. This fact shows through the discrimination to outer-groups and the development of images against them. Exemplary images of the folk to the elites and of Gokalp to the West can be deducted from his lines which states that the elites must take the culture of the folks and bring them civilisation from the West. The rogue image can be found between Ottoman state elites and Turkish people. The first group sees Turks as subject to the state and the latter perceives these elites as a threat against their culture. Finally, Gokalp’s image to Eastern civilisation reminds of an excluded image that sees it must be excluded or be dragged into the Middle age.
In conclusion, Gokalp’s nationalism corresponds to an in-group of Turks with an attitude of solidarity and a minimum of individualism, who maintained the same ethnic values and were united around an idea while they were following the strategies of social mobility in the context of European civilisation, social creativity about the language and philosophy, and social competition with Europe. It can be said that in-group defined by Gokalp shows the last step of a nationalist attitude in terms of the nationalism scale.
