Since early 2000s，Turkey has been undergoing a major restructuring which has mostly been identified by stressing religion and positioning it at the centre of analysis.Thus，quite often it is proposed that Turkey is undergoing a process of “Islamization” or “de-Islamization”，depending on one's views on the issue of religion.Religion and nationalism have always played major roles in the construction of Turkish identity despite the assertively secular nature of the state.Either by pushing the religion to the private sphere or by exploiting it to mobilize masses，the ruling elite has made it a heavily political matter.It is widely believed however that in order to understand Turkey's experience with the Justice and Development Party （hereinafter，AKP）on the face of modernization paradigm，one has to transgress the boundaries between binary opposites and dichotomies.Otherwise，the conclusions unavoidably fail to provide credible findings and holistic，therefore more comprehensive analysis.

Without claiming to exhaust all the relevant factors，this chapter argues that the current process Turkey is undergoing involves the reinforcement of collective identity intertwined with free market economy，that is，neo-liberalism that comprises Islamic sensitivities.In other words，it is argued that religion，regardless of the importance politicians assign to it，is not the main or the only factor of the new Turkish identity that the AKP has been trying to construct since its rise to power in the early 2000s.Central to that is the new “ideology” of the state since early 2010s，the so-called “New Turkey”，as a means to construct a new paradigm on the identity of the state and a counter-hegemonic narrative to replace Turkey's historically established Kemalism （named after Mustafa Kemal，the founder and first president of the Republic）blended with the global trend of neo-liberalism.It is argued in this chapter that in this process the AKP government appropriates the mechanisms established by Kemalism in its attempt to forge a new collective identity for the Turkish society and re-structure the state.

The chapter thus starts with a brief description of Kemalist nation-building process since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and continues with the Cold War period with an emphasis on Turkish-Islamic Synthesis.It then，focuses on the AKP government in its instrumentalization of religion and blending it with neoliberal policies to capacitate the ongoing identity building process in Turkey.