Abstract
Using an interpretive-textual methodology, this chapter seeks to analyze the characteristics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rhetoric through his speeches and statements on domestic policies. The chapter is divided into two major sections. The first section briefly explains the role of debasing language in the context of Turkish politics, and the second discusses the case of Erdoğan from 2003, when he became prime minister, to the present. The latter section focuses on three questions: (1) What are the major characteristics of Erdoğan’s political rhetoric? (2) Why does Erdoğan use such rhetoric? (3) What are the consequences of using this rhetoric? To answer, this study’s argument is threefold: First, Erdoğan’s rhetoric combines binarism, organicism, and demonization. Second, he uses the rhetoric for pragmatic and ideological reasons. Third, his rhetoric has facilitated the rise of political polarization in Turkey and reduced politics to a highly moralized field. Furthermore, it has had an impact on political socialization processes in Turkey.
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Notes
- 1.
In Turkish, “onu” is an object pronoun that means “him,” “her,” and “it.” This ambiguity made it possible for Özal to claim that he did not mean “it,” which would stand for phallus, but “him,” which meant his grandson.
- 2.
For example, see Görener and Ucal (2011), Özbudun (2014), Öniş (2015, 2016), Aydın-Düzgit (2016), Türk (2014, 2018), Baykan (2018), Selçuk et al. (2019), Aytaç and Elçi (2019), Eksi and Wood (2019), Elçi (2019), Çapan and Zarakol (2019), Kesgin (2020), Rogenhofer and Panievsky (2020), Yılmaz (2020), Yolaçan (2021), Aslan (2021).
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Kısakürek never hesitated to use derogatory language toward those he criticizes. Some examples of such terms are Gübre beyinli (“manure brained”), pembe kıçlı maymun (“pink-assed monkey”), kâfir (“infidel”) haşere (“insect”), ahlaksız (“immoral”), deyyus (“cuckold”), and lüpçü (“parasite”) (Kısakürek, 2012a, pp. 99, 145, 172, 199, 501, 544).
- 6.
According to Kısakürek, “our society” has suffered from countless “moral wounds” such as “adulation, favoritism, theft, bribery, prostitution, alcohol, murder, gambling” (Kısakürek, 2012a, pp. 156–158). Therefore, he emphasizes the necessity of a moral revival. He believes that this revival can only be possible by embracing the core values of Islam (Kısakürek, 2012a, pp. 92, 97, 103, 116).
- 7.
Not surprisingly, this multi-dimensional search is intertwined with his anti-Western rhetoric, which is xenophobic (Kısakürek, 2012a, pp. 546–548; 2013, p. 73). Kısakürek’s rhetoric is also shaped by a strong commitment to anti-communism (Kısakürek, 2010, 2012b). According to him, the basic principle of communism is “the denial of God” (Kısakürek, 2013, p. 86). Additionally, his rhetoric is overwhelmingly characterized by anti-elitism. In this context, Kısakürek refers to an alliance of the elites including journalists, academics, intellectuals, and politicians (Kısakürek, 2013, pp. 35, 78, 81, 106, 153). Furthermore, he sees the CHP as an extension of this alliance and the ideology of Westernization (Kısakürek, 2008, pp. 112–118).
- 8.
According to Inbar et al. (2012), there is a strong correlation between disgust sensitivity and conservatism.
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Türk, H. (2023). Demonization, Derision, Polarization: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Political Rhetoric. In: Feldman, O. (eds) Debasing Political Rhetoric. The Language of Politics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0894-3_11
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