History, Discourse, and Policy in Modern Turkey

Abstract

Through critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the discourse-historical approach (DHA), this book probes into political discourse imbued with historical legacies, with particular focus on explicating the structure and function of AKP stories and its relationship with Turkish politics. It offers an alternative way of reading the transformation in such politics via the pattern of deconstruction, reconstruction, and policymaking. It systematically delineates how President R. Tayyip Erdogan’s political discourse evokes dialog that embodies the grand legacy of history, deconstructs the mentality of the opposition, reconstructs an alternative dialog, and converts discourse into policy. The book breaks a new ground by introducing a theoretical framework on the relationship between political discourse and policy. It traces how political stories sourced largely by appropriated historical themes and figures enable rhetoricians to weave simple yet good and influential stories to legitimize potential political action, by beguiling people’s hearts and minds.