Neo-Ottoman Nationalism as a Post-Imperial Project: Identity, Memory, and Geopolitical Ambition

Nationalism, at its core, is a political principle that answers three fundamental questions: Who are we as a collective? What norms and institutions should rule us? What goals define our shared destiny? Every nationalist project constructs boundaries of belonging and articulates aspirations for political authority. Neo-Ottomanism, which has become a defining ideological force in contemporary Turkey, represents a distinctive form of nationalism that seeks to recast Turkish identity, reorder the domestic hierarchy of legitimacy, and expand Turkey’s geopolitical footprint. It is best understood as a restorative, post-imperial, civilizational nationalism that challenges the secular Kemalist model of the republic and reactivates the memory, symbols, and geographies of the Ottoman Empire.

Restorative Nationalism: Reclaiming a Lost Golden Age

Neo-Ottomanism draws heavily on a narrative of historical rupture and desired recovery. It identifies the Ottoman imperial era as a golden age of prestige, religious authority, and geopolitical centrality. In this worldview, the empire’s collapse, the partition plans of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, and the subsequent secularization reforms of the early republic constitute a traumatic “dark age.” According to this narrative, the republican project confined Turkey to narrow territorial borders, marginalized its Islamic identity, and severed its civilizational mission.

The contemporary vision of a “New Turkey” proposes a symbolic restoration: not the literal re-establishment of imperial borders, but the revival of Ottoman grandeur, prestige, and mission. This restorative logic is evident in the state’s memory politics—such as the monumental reopening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque, the celebration of Ottoman sultans as state-builders, and the proliferation of Ottoman-themed television dramas like Diriliş Ertuğrul and Payitaht Abdülhamid, which recast the empire as a source of moral authority and global leadership.

The aim is to re-anchor national identity in a deeper, religiously infused civilizational narrative, reversing what neo-Ottomanists interpret as the Kemalist erasure of the Ottoman-Muslim past. In Cederman’s terms, neo-Ottomanism activates grievances about lost “home rule” (the decline of Sunni-Ottoman identity within Turkey) and lost “unity” (the fragmentation of Ottoman geographies into separate nation-states).

Anti-Kemalist Counter-Memory and Domestic Reordering

Neo-Ottoman nationalism also serves as a domestic counter-revolution against the foundational principles of the republic. Kemalism conceived the nation as a civic, territorial, secular, and Western-oriented community. Neo-Ottomanism recasts this by embedding the nation in a Sunni-Turko-Islamic civilizational framework. The legitimate “core” of the polity becomes implicitly Sunni, conservative, Ottoman-loyal, and culturally Muslim. Groups that fall outside this core—such as Alevis, secular Turks, Kurds, and non-Muslims—become symbolically peripheral, even when legally integrated.

This re-centering is visible in education reforms that expand religious curricula, in the Directorate of Religious Affairs’ growing social role, and in state discourse that merges national identity with Islamic morality. The aim is not only to revise history but to reorder Turkey’s symbolic hierarchy of belonging.

Post-Imperial Great-Power Nationalism

At the international level, neo-Ottomanism expresses itself as a form of post-imperial great-power nationalism. Unlike small-nation nationalisms seeking independence, neo-Ottomanism begins with the memory of a vast empire. It asserts that Turkey is not a “normal” middle power but a state with historical responsibilities to regions once under Ottoman rule.  This ambition does not generally take the form of territorial annexation. Instead, it emphasizes building a sphere of influence grounded in shared religion, language, and history. The result is a geopolitical project that seeks to “re-scale” Turkey’s regional role without formal empire-building.

Concrete examples illustrate this dynamic are: Turkey’s military operations (Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, and Peace Spring) aim to prevent Kurdish autonomy, restructure local governance, and maintain a long-term security presence in Syria. Turkey has been also active in Libya. Turkish support for the Government of National Accord in 2019–20 shifted the direction of the war and secured maritime influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. Moreover, Turkey’s decisive role in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war exemplified Turkic-Islamic solidarity and cemented Ankara as a regional power broker. Turkey has invested in major infrastructure projects, mosque restoration, soft-power initiatives, and military training bases in Somalia.  These interventions illustrate how neo-Ottoman nationalism extends beyond cultural nostalgia; it translates into tangible geopolitical action. 

Ethno-Religious and Civilizational Identity

Neo-Ottomanism differs from both ethnic and civic nationalisms. Rather than grounding the nation solely in Turkish ethnicity or in republican citizenship, it fuses ethnicity, religion, and imperial memory into a civilizational identity.  Internally, this produces a majority nationalism that positions Sunni Turks as the rightful custodians of the state’s mission. Externally, it draws boundaries of affinity according to shared Ottoman-Islamic heritage rather than modern nation-state lines. This is why Turkish policymakers often speak of responsibility toward “our brothers” in Bosnia, Gaza, Aleppo, Kirkuk, and the Caucasus.

Neo-Ottomanism is fundamentally geopolitical because it imagines Turkey as the center of a civilizational space larger than its territorial borders. This reflects a key insight often missed in mainstream nationalism scholarship: nationalism is inherently territorial. Neo-Ottomanism does not articulate abstract cultural unity; it maps identity onto specific regions—Damascus, Sarajevo, Mosul, Jerusalem—that once constituted the Ottoman world.

This territorial imaginary shapes state behavior. Turkish foreign policy increasingly emphasizes autonomous military capacity, strategic depth, and influence corridors that link Anatolia to the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. It is a nationalism of spatial ambition rather than spatial restraint.

Conclusion

Neo-Ottoman nationalism is a coherent ideological project that simultaneously redefines Turkish identity, reshapes domestic power relations, and expands Turkey’s geopolitical aspirations. It is restorative in its memory politics, post-imperial in its ambition, civilizational in its identity construction, and territorial in its foreign policy logic. Ultimately, it seeks to replace the Kemalist model of nationhood with a new synthesis rooted in Ottoman memory and Islamic morality, while projecting Turkey outward as a regional great power. Understanding neo-Ottomanism therefore requires recognizing it as part of a broader global pattern of “nationalist systems change,” driven by states seeking to reclaim lost prestige, redefine legitimacy, and reshape the geopolitical order in their favor.