Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey

State ideology defined the secular morality of families and their place in society; asserted a claim to the first duty of youth, which was to protect the republic; created a universal persona of what it meant to be a Turk; stipulated proper surnames and dress in public; and promoted and controlled a state civic culture of social solidarity that was more important than the individual. Özyürek traces the development of interconnections between nostalgia and privatization as they shape and transform a local political culture, and she argues that they are among the powerful driving forces behind neoliberal ideology that turn objects, relations, and concepts into commodities and transform political expression by converting it to an issue of personal interest.