Governmental discourse, moral regulation and democratic legitimation :|the case of Turkey

Abstract

This thesis aims to demonstrate the substantial regulatory impact of the governmental discourse of the Justice and Development Party (JDP). Despite the fact that JDP had exhibited a model for the accommodation of Islamic discourses and actors in democratic structures, about a decade after its coming to power, JDP increasingly lost ground in its compliance with the democratic norms and values. JDP’s compliance with the secular notions of Turkish government, however, presented a rather complex picture. While the party preserved its moderate character by refraining from explicitly overturning secular structures as feared, it gradually assumed an authoritarian moralizing character on the discursive level and utilized this increasing authority to thwart and diminish the secular norms. The hegemonic effect of JDP’s domineering moral leadership often left little need for bureaucratic and legal regulatory reforms on religious affairs. In order to understand the moralizing impact of JDP discourse, three distinct topics concerning especially the citizens’ bodily autonomy is analyzed. The governmental discourse on these topics exemplify how separate calls for democratic demands are deliberated differently as the governmental authority decides upon which democratic demands for rights and freedoms could be considered morally legitimate. Such moralizing claims when produced by the governmental actors with disproportionate discursive influence bring about spiraling hegemonic social structures of regulation.