Gayrimüslim azınlık söylemi ve politikaları: Türkiye?deki ana siyasi akımların karşılaştırmalı analizi (1923-2012)

While the non-Muslims constituted 2.5% of Turkey?s population in 1927, their percentage has now decreased to just 0.14%. They were a clear target for tacit exclusion and discrimination for the Turkish state. Has this government attitude ever changed? The study offers important insights into the definition of Turkish nationhood by mainstream political parties in Turkey in two major respects. First, it provides a rich original historical analysis of both the discourses and policies of Turkish governments and political parties with regard to non-Muslim citizens. Secondly, it looks into various Turkish nationalisms on a comparative basis, exploring the similarities and differences between all Turkish governments from 1923 to 2012. Based on an original empirical research on Prime Ministry archives, TBMM proceedings, and an extensive newspaper scanning, I find that conservative right-wing political parties in Turkey have generally demonstrated a more inclusive definition of Turkishness with regard to non-Muslims, than have the Kemalist nationalist-secular parties. Religious identity has consistently been a salient criterion for inclusion/exclusion. The thesis confirmed for the Turkish case, too, that nationalism as a contingent, multi-faceted, changing, and diverse phenomenon, just as elsewhere in the world, is a political struggle for hegemony, in which the contenders tend to utilize the hegemon?s language and habits with limited challenges. Specifically, the thesis identifies the challenges about full inclusion during AKP under five groups: conditional and restrictive nature of reforms, persistence of reciprocity approach, communal representation, pragmatism about global prestige, intrinsic problems of neo-Ottomanism and Islamist nationalism as viable substitutes.