Although Kemalist secularism is often considered as a distinctively unique secularization project, dominant approaches have the tendency of reducing it either to an imitation of idealized West-oriented secularism models, or to a necessary product of specific historical conditions of the Ottoman-Turkish context. This thesis questions these dominant tendencies for they run the risk of disregarding the creative and original interventions of the Kemalist elite through which a distinctively unique conception of secularism, secular identity, and secular subjectivity is formed in Turkey. This thesis suggests that without studying the ideological and subjectivity dimensions, the specificity and complexity of Kemalist secularism cannot be explored adequately. Accordingly, it argues that Kemalist secularism is a distinctively unique modality of secularism because it came into existence in and through the operationalization of a peculiar ideological force, which I call the Orientalist fantasy. Chapter 1 introduces the poststructuralist hegemonic approach and poststructuralist discourse analysis that I employed in this thesis to study what I call the hegemonic formation and operationalization of Kemalist secularism. Drawing on the discourses of the first generation Kemalist elites with special reference to the enactment of the Hat Law in the early Republican era (1923-1938), chapter 2 discusses what is meant by the Orientalist fantasy, and the historical conditions of its emergence. Drawing on the Kemalist secularist discourses on the so-called 'new veiling question', chapter 3 discusses the operational force and main characteristics of the Orientalist fantasy in post1990s Turkey. By introducing the categories of emotional affiliation and structures of feeling, chapters 4 and 5 discuss the endurance of the Orientalist fantasy. Drawing on the Kemalist secularist discourses on the so-called the February 28th (1997) 'postmodern coup' in chapter 4, and on the rise of the 'new Islamic' Justice and Development Party government in chapter 5, I introduce harassment and fear as two central structures of feeling that endure the Orientalist fantasy. The concluding chapter summarizes the main arguments of the thesis, incorporates the normative and ideological implications of the analysis, explicates the advances of the poststructuralist approach over dominant approaches in studying the Turkish experience with secularism, and introduces sorts of research questions the thesis opens up for future research.

This project was initially born out of a curiosity to investigate why Turkey in the 2000s so fervently reclaimed itself in Middle Eastern politics. Such curiosity was further buttressed by additional questions like 'why now?', 'is this the first time?', 'has Turkey ever indicated a similar interest in the region?' and 'are there common patterns with cross government, cross time and cross leadership explanatory power?' Thus seeking answers in a broadened perspective, a most pertinent challenge was to develop a heuristic model. This effort brought Turkish „state culture' to the forefront. Earlier scholarly work had already provided hindsight with regards to 'strategic culture' through a security based understanding. But this time Turkish leaders' expressly geography based reasoning required further scrutiny by analysing contending geopolitical discourses from the early days of Turkey until the present day. This is how this research came across geopolitics in critical scholarship. As a result, the novel perspective to analyse as to how Turkey behaves in the Middle East is centred on the premise of 'geopolitical culture'. It covers many aspects of discursive geography in which perception and representation with historical ad continuum remain two key themes. The analyses in this study are therefore socially and historically contextual, and are not singlehandedly restricted to the views of individual Turkish leaders. The two most prominent traditions, i.e. Kemalism and Conservatism, keep producing rediscovered discourses on the global political space, Turkey‟s geography, and sense of geo-cultural belonging. What remains beneath are two distinct, competing and highly irreconcilable geopolitical mentalities to impact foreign policy in an exercise highly imbued with domestic power relations. This is to hint at the freshness of the theoretical perspective with a particular emphasis on geographical influences on Turkish foreign policy through the prism of the Middle East.