Nation approach in conservative nationalism in the Republican Period

Although more than a century has passed since the conceptualization of Turkism, Pan-Islamism, and Modernization, no new different solutions have been put forward in order to ensure national unity in the nation understanding of conservative nationalism so far. This approach, which emerged from a practical situation in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, has come to these days by experiencing transformations within itself. Of them, the first two had a great impact on a period with adaptations in the style of Turkish-Islamic synthesis in the 1970s. Afterwards, the inadequacy of the efforts made around the Turkish-Islamic Ideal to embrace the whole society points to the weakness of the power of this formula. Studies in the understanding of nation were mostly stuck around culture and civilization, and the modernization idea has been insufficient in descending from the intellectual level to the society. In this triple conception, while defining the nation, especially religion turns into an area of tension and conflict between official nationalism and conservative nationalism. In the centennial of the establishment of the nation-state, the ongoing debate on the components of the nation shows that every segment of the society has different perceptions in defining the nation. Conservative nationalism, in which conservatism is considered secondary and nationalism is fundamental, is traditional nationalism that always winks at it from afar, although it does not evoke Turanism, which does not deny religion and does not hesitate to emphasize religious images when necessary. It is another proposition of this thesis that the factor that brings conservatism together with nationalism in the West and the nationalism with conservatism in Turkey is the threat perception of socialism, although the development directions and the periods are different. The scope of the study is limited to nationalism that does not exclude conservative values, even consciously approaches it after the 70s, rather than Islamism, which is one of the two main ideas that originate conservative nationalist thought. While defining the nation, the idea of perpetuating the primordial nation understanding of conservative nationalism, which frequently refers to the concepts of national culture such as history, tradition, language, and religion, will be emphasized. Defining the characteristic features of the understanding of nation in conservative nationalism is the first of its kind in the studies conducted in this field. Conservative nationalism, which does not deny the citizenship-based interpretation of identity in the understanding of nation of official nationalism, claims to give spirit to the understanding of the nation by building the area that the secular interpretation lacks with culture, especially religion.