Istanbul as a Showcase of AKP’s Electoral Techno-Nationalism

In Turkey, despite the economic crisis and the earthquake of February 2023, the elections of May 14 and 28, 2023, saw the People’s Coalition (Cumhur Ittifakı) retain its majority in parliament and President Erdoğan re-elected for a third term. How can such political longevity be explained ? It appears that, once again, the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party), the Islam-rooted conservative party in power since 2002, has taken advantage of its ability to forge victorious electoral coalitions (Benhaïm, Massicard and Toumarkine 2022), limit internal conflicts and, above all, mobilize and redistribute state resources to consolidate its electoral foothold (Kalaycıoğlu 2010 ; Dorronsoro and Gourisse 2013 ; Çeviker Gürakar 2016).

Beyond these analytical frameworks, we must also take into account the support of a part of the country for a political discourse carried by the party in power. [1] This electoral victory confirms the success of the AKP’s campaign strategy. Following in the wake of an already well-honed discourse on the “new Turkey” (“Yeni Türkiye”) and “Turkey’s century” (“Türkiye’nin Yüzyılı”), this time around the party’s strategy placed particular emphasis on a national narrative celebrating independence (“Tam bağımsız Türkiye”) and the country’s power (“Güçlü Türkiye”), made possible in particular by technological progress. Within this technonationalist discourse promoting the development of national innovation capabilities to guarantee strategic autonomy and technical self-sufficiency (Reich 1987), the defense industry took center stage. Its growth became synonymous with military power, independence from Western powers and proof of the country’s development (Corte-Real Pinto 2019 ; Soyaltin-Colella and Demiryol 2023), despite a daily life marked by economic crisis.

With some 11.3 million voters, or 17.7% of the country’s electorate, Istanbul has a not inconsiderable influence on election results nationwide. While the metropolitan mayoralty was won by the opposition in the 2019 municipal elections, the campaign there was marked by a heavy mobilization of state resources to target the heart of the AKP electorate. Analysis of the images and events deployed in the urban space during this campaign leads us to re-examine the role of technonationalism in electoral mobilizations in Turkey (Corte-Real Pinto 2019). While many other cities are also involved, Istanbul’s political symbolism, its location for military demonstrations, and its demographic weight make it a privileged site for observing how technonationalism constitutes the point of convergence of various recurring themes in the ruling party’s electoral propaganda, particularly since 2016 : projection into the future, technological modernity, the cult of power and warmongering nationalism. [2]

When the national defense industry comes to town

In the month leading up to polling day, the AKP made technological development, particularly in the military field, one of its key campaign themes. This emphasis on concrete achievements of power is in line with previous strategies of the presidential party, whose slogan in 2015 was “They talk about it, the AKP does it” (“Onlar konuşur, AKP yapar”). On the one hand, this allows the AKP to boast about its two decades in power, with the May 2023 election presented by the government as a referendum for or against the current regime ; on the other, it projects the electorate into a future of technology and power that obscures the reality of the country’s current economic difficulties.

Over a period of a month, the metropolis of Istanbul became a life-size showcase for the Turkish defense industry. On some of the posters (Figure 1), Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s motto was appropriated by the current government : “The future is in the skies” (“Istikbal Göklerdedir”), implying an assumed continuity between the founder of the Republic and the current president. The latter appears as his paradoxical heir, the red highlighting of the former’s name at the bottom of the quotation chromatically echoing Erdoğan’s jacket on the right of the poster. All the campaign documents repeatedly mobilize this image of sitting candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signing the Kızılelma drone from the Baykar aeronautical company, thus marking it with the presidential seal in an act of blessing the aircraft and vindicating the policy of empowering the country’s defense industry (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1. "The future is in the skies"

Figure 2. "The right impact in the defense industry"

Elsewhere, the promotion of the defense industry is in line with the AKP’s development-centric ideology, which puts urban spaces in particular at the heart of its political project (Pérouse 2017). The new flagships of the Turkish aerospace sector thus join the other figures of this “century of Turkey” that the AKP claims to have already begun : megaprojects (Morvan 2013 ; Flyvbjerg 2014) and innovative technological projects in particular. On AKP posters (Figure 3), the Akıncı drone thus rubs shoulders with the satellite, the TF-X Kaan fifth-generation fighter jet or the TOGG electric car, but also with flagship facilities for the metropolis of Istanbul : the Marmaray train, the giant Şehir Hastanesi hospital in Başakşehir, the new airport and the third Bosphorus bridge. A similar parallelism between urban megaprojects and military power is at work in other communication media, such as this coloring book aimed at younger children and distributed by presidential party teams during the campaign in Istanbul (Figure 4). Here, the products of Turkey’s defense industry are elevated to the status of national monument, on a par with Istanbul’s new airport, Hagia Sophia recently converted into a mosque, the gigantic radio tower in Çamlıca or the new mosque in Taksim. They populate the political imagination disseminated among the younger generations, with the metropolis of Istanbul as the main backdrop.

Figure 3. "Istanbul is ready. Turkey’s century begins"

Figure 4. Coloring book distributed by the AKP in Üsküdar, Istanbul

The spectacle of militarized technonationalism in urban space

As a further indication of the AKP’s campaign strategy targeting the entire family unit, from mid-April until the run-up to the presidential election, young and old alike were able to admire the latest achievements of the Turkish defense industry at various events and open days in urban areas. This mobilization of public resources and state means for partisan purposes helped to promote the AKP’s record in power through spectacle. These various events are all immersions in the new national narrative that the presidential coalition is proposing to voters : technonationalism, strategic autonomy and militarism are intertwined in this universe where technology (most of the time militarized) is defined as the guarantor of the country’s future.

From April 17 to 30, 2023, the mini aircraft carrier TCG-Anadolu (L400) was moored at the Sarayburnu quayside, in the heart of the historic peninsula and right next to the Topkapı Palace (on the European side), where it was open to visitors from the city’s residents, who turned out in large numbers for the occasion (Figure 5). Because of its location, Istanbul has long been a prime venue for the display of the Turkish navy. Rarely, however, has it been so accessible to the public. Strictly regulated access, forbidden to foreign visitors, enabled some 140,000 Stamboulians to visit the ship, according to Ministry of Defense figures, [3] despite criticism from Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the Kemalist opposition candidate, denouncing “an army ship transformed into an AKP election campaign bus.” [4]

Figure 5. The TCG-Anadolu aircraft carrier on the Golden Horn (May 2023)

A few days later, from May 10 to 19, 2023, the Ministry of Defense will erect a huge red tent on the quays of Üsküdar (on the Asian side of the river) to show visitors the “national and local” (“milli ve yerli”) production of the defense and arms industry, during an exhibition in this “digital exhibition center” entitled “The Power of the Century - The Technology of Bravery” (“Yüzyıllın Gücü - Cesaretin Teknolojisi”). From models of Roketsan missiles to scale models of Bayraktar drones, warships and the Altay tank, Stamboulians were able to stroll, with family or friends, through a long corridor featuring a video-mapped landscape of all these national productions, before posing with members of the armed forces.

But it was undoubtedly the Teknofest festival that made the biggest impact on the Istanbul election campaign. The sixth edition of this “festival of aviation, space and technology” was held from April 27 to May 1, 2023, on the tarmac of the old Atatürk airport. The event is co-organized by the Ministry of Industry and Technology and the Technology Team Turkey Foundation (Türkiye Teknoloji Takımı Vakfı or T3 Vakfı), established in 2016 with the aim of promoting technology literacy and entrepreneurship among the country’s youth via the organization of events and competitions, and sponsorship with start-ups. Teknofest is a family-friendly aeronautics show, free and open to the public, featuring a large number of military aircraft on display and demonstrations throughout the day, between the tents of the event’s industrial partners and those where the competitions take place. Comprising students from elementary school to doctorate level, the competitions take place in various categories : aircraft engines, helicopter design, electric vehicles, vertical landing for rockets, aerial or marine drones, and more. The May 2023 edition was particularly popular, with over 2.5 million visitors. Teknofest thus combines entertainment and educational experiences designed to raise visitors’ awareness of technology, but above all to encourage them to take pride in the latest domestic products and make them their own through immersion, taking selfies and consuming by-products (Figures 6 and 7).

Figures 6 and 7. Festival Teknofest in Istanbul, April 29, 2023

What impact on election results ?

The display and spectacle of technonationalism, with its concentration in space and time, highlights the ruling party’s desire to reach as many potential voters as possible. Indeed, while the empowerment of the national defense industry is not a new theme for the AKP, this intense deployment took place during the last month of the campaign, in central areas of the Istanbul megalopolis well served by public transport, with a view to promoting greater visibility and, for the three events, attracting a maximum number of visitors from more distant districts. The promotion of technonationalism, here militarized, is combined with a political narrative about urban space itself, saturated with a technological modernity synonymous with power.

In the presidential elections, opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu won the majority of votes against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the metropolis. However, the AKP remained in the majority in Istanbul’s constituencies in the legislative elections, confirming Jean-François Pérouse’s (2019) hypothesis that the tilts of some districts in favor of the Kemalist opposition in the June 2019 municipal elections did not represent definitive losses for the AKP—let alone for all elections.

We have to admit that it is very difficult today to assess the part played by the mobilization of this theme in the victory of the camp in power in the legislative and presidential elections of May 2023. We can, however, hypothesize that the opposition’s criticism of the mobilization of state resources for these events, or its denunciation of the favoritism enjoyed by the company of President Selçuk Bayraktar’s son-in-law, may have had a repellent effect on a section of the electorate charmed by the sirens of technonationalism.

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