DÉCRIPT Séance 2 de l'axe Proche et Moyen-Orient : Resurrecting a Lost Civilization: Understanding "Culture Wars" and Islamic Civilizationism in Contemporary Turkey

From nostalgic horizon to political weapon, ‘civilization’ has become one of the key idioms through which power speaks in contemporary Turkey.
The first part of this talk will examine how civilizationism became a key element of the Turkish Islamist worldview while the movement was in opposition. Starting in the 1950s and gaining traction in the 1970s, civilizationism became a conceptual language of its own that mediated between the national framework and the wider world. From very early on, it was embedded in desires of resurrected imperial prowess, leadership, and prestige in the Muslim world, to which a civilizational reorientation would reconnect Turkey. Following the movement into government, the talk then traces the emergence of universities founded on explicit civilizational principles, and of a foreign policy laced with civilizational references, both born directly out of the earlier intellectual foundation. Finally, we will make the acquaintance of the unique social type of the civilizationalist intellectual-academic-politician that moves between these three fields.  

The second part then examines how ‘culture wars’ that reframe domestic symbolic conflicts into broader civilizational narratives have become both a social phenomenon and a powerful interpretive framework in contemporary Turkey. It draws on a sociological analysis of conservative intellectuals and the cultural policies of the Erdoğan era. By reconstructing the sociogenesis of this category within the intellectual field, the study traces its translation into governmental practice. The analysis shows that ‘culture wars’ function as a mode of legitimation and a repertoire of state intervention. In doing so, it intersects with the rise of Islamic civilizationism, explored in this lecture series and the Decript program as a whole.