Manufacturing the Ummah: Turkey’s transnational populism and construction of the people globally

Inspired by the concept of ‘transnational populism’ this paper investigates the efforts of a religious populist regime to narratively construct ‘the transnational people’ and ‘the transnational leader’ in diasporic spaces that Sunni Muslim minorities occupy. The paper aims to show how Turkey’s ruling party is constructing an Islamist civilisational populist narrative fortified with emotions and how it is disseminating it. We show that Turkey’s current regime has expanded its definition of ‘the people’ in domestic politics to include the whole global Sunni Muslim community (the Ummah), presenting itself as the representative, protector and saviour of the Ummah that has been victimised by the Crusader West. It also expanded its definition of diaspora to include non-Turkish Sunni Muslims/Islamic communities who did not originate from Turkey. Then, similar to its propagation of this narrative and emotional rhetoric at home, it has attempted to transnationalise this Islamist civilisational populist narrative and thes emotions to the Sunni Muslim diaspora communities through state and non-state apparatuses. As a novel contribution, this paper builds a bridge between diaspora studies, religion and populism to capture this transnational aspect of populism.