Abstract
- Often peppered with religious references, “family values” rhetoric has become a trademark of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan since his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. His frequent encouragement of early marriage and criticism of childless women illustrate an ever-expanding repertoire of conservative pronouncements regarding gender, reproduction and the family. Erdoğan’s critics often downplay these religiously inflected pronouncements as either diversions from its policy failures or indicative of the AKP government’s ulterior agenda to Islamize Turkish society by imposing religiously inspired norms. Rather than simply a rhetorical sideshow or shorthand for covert Islamism, however, Erdoğan and the AKP’s emphasis on strengthening family values and promoting conservative views on reproduction and gender are central to the AKP govern- ment’s broader demographic, social service and welfare policies predicated on neoconservative, neoliberal and neo-patriarchal rationalities. Moreover, the AKP’s politics of family values is at the core of its long-term strategy to rebuild a “New Turkey” by recuperating from the alleged damages to the social fabric and strength of the nation perpetrated by the formerly hegemonic Kemalist oligarchy.