Nostalji siyaseti: Popülizmin psikolojik kökenleri

This study aims to scrutinize the relationship between collective nostalgia and populism. Many populists around the world exploit nostalgia by referring to the good, glorious days of their country and reflecting their resentment against the elites and establishment. By using three original datasets from Turkey, this study first analyzes the populist discourse of political leaders in their speeches and discusses changes in the level of populism over time by using quantitative and qualitative content analysis tools. Populists appear as mnemonic warriors while instrumentalizing nostalgia to justify their actions and aims, in which they establish a memory regime in which the opposition becomes enemies to be destroyed. Secondly, this study analyzes whether collective nostalgia also characterizes populist attitudes of the electorate by using representative survey data. The results illustrate that collective nostalgia has a significantly positive relationship with populist attitudes even after controlling for various independent variables including religiosity, partisanship, satisfaction with life, and Euroskepticism. Finally, this study tests which type of nostalgic message affects populist attitudes by using an online survey experiment. The results indicate that while Ottoman nostalgia paves the way for increasing populist attitudes of AKP constituency, it has a negative impact on CHP voters' populism. Kemalist nostalgia, on the other hand, has an indirect effect on populist attitudes despite having a weak direct effect.