Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey explores the role of religion (Sunni, Hanefi Islam) in the transformation of Turkey under the reign of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). The chapters argue that the Turkish understanding of secularism was also one of the building blocks and the constitutive elements of Turkey’s modernization until the rise of the AKP. Currently, however, it seems that religion has become a new or re-born element of the new Turkey and has been transforming many areas such as: the media, the Kurdish issue, implementation of the rule of law, foreign policy and gender issues. This book therefore aims to scrutinize the question: how does a religion-based transformation in Turkey influence the raison d’etat of the state, and effect in various ways different areas such as gender, foreign policy, economy and socio-political relations of various power groups within the society? Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey will be of great interest to scholars of Religion and Politics, and governance in Turkey. It was originally published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Winner of the William A. Douglass Prize in Europeanist Anthropology The emergence of an Islamist movement and the startling buoyancy of Islamic political parties in Turkey--a model of secular modernization, a cosmopolitan frontier, and NATO ally--has puzzled Western observers. As the appeal of the Islamist Welfare Party spread through Turkish society, including the middle class, in the 1990s, the party won numerous local elections and became one of the largest parties represented in parliament, even holding the prime ministership in 1996 and 1997. Welfare was formally banned and closed in 1998, and its successor, Virtue, was banned in 2001, for allegedly posing a threat to the state, but the Islamist movement continues to grow in popularity. Jenny White has produced an ethnography of contemporary Istanbul that charts the success of Islamist mobilization through the eyes of ordinary people. Drawing on neighborhood interviews gathered over twenty years of fieldwork, she focuses intently on the genesis and continuing appeal of Islamic politics in the fabric of Turkish society and among mobilizing and mobilized elites, women, and educated populations. White shows how everyday concerns and interpersonal relations, rather than Islamic dogma, helped Welfare gain access to community networks, building on continuing face-to-face relationships by way of interactions with constituents through trusted neighbors. She argues that Islamic political networks are based on cultural understandings of relationships, duties, and trust. She also illustrates how Islamic activists have sustained cohesion despite contradictory agendas and beliefs, and how civic organizations, through local relationships, have ensured the autonomy of these networks from the national political organizations in whose service they appear to act. To illuminate the local culture of Istanbul, White has interviewed residents, activists, party officials, and municipal administrators and participated in their activities. She draws on rich experiences and research made possible by years of firsthand observation in the streets and homes of Umraniye, a large neighborhood that grew in tandem with Turkey's modernization in the late 20th century. This book will appeal to anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and analysts of Islamic and Middle Eastern politics. Jenny B. Whiteis associate professor of anthropology at Boston University.

Turkey has undergone a series of upheavals in its political regime from the mid-19th century. This book details the most recent change, locating it in its broader historical setting. Beginning with the Justice and Development Party's rule from late 2002, supported by a broad informal coalition that included liberals, the book shows how the former Islamists gradually acquired full power between 2007 and 2011. It then describes the subsequent phase, looking at politics and rights under the amorphous new order. This is the first scholarly yet accessible assessment of this historic change, placing it in the larger context of political modernisation in the country over the past 150 years.

This comprehensive volume analyses the phenomena of populism and Islamism in Turkey under Justice and Development Party (JDP) rule since 2002, and its impact on the country’s foreign policy. The authors seek to identify the meanings of ‘populism’ and ‘Islamism’ in the Turkish context and their relationship to democracy there, exploring the extent to which they may explain the apparent rise of authoritarianism and illiberalism under the JDP and especially under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and address the tensions between Turkey’s ‘western’ and ‘Muslim’ discourses and the politicization of history in the ‘new Turkey’. They examine the implications of these developments for Turkey’s EU accession prospects and its western alliances, explore the impact they have had on the country’s approach to the Arab Spring, and consider their relationship to Turkey’s status as an emerging economy in an economically globalizing context. The volume also debates whether Turkish populism is unique to that country or reflects a growing trend in world politics, including in the west. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of political science and international relations, especially those with a focus on Turkey. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal Turkish Studies.

This book explores state–religion relations under a populist authoritarian ruling party in Turkey. In doing so, it investigates how the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) instrumentalizes state-controlled religion to further, defend, legitimatize and propagate its authoritarian populist political agenda in a constitutionally secular nation-state. To exemplify this, the authors examine the Friday sermons delivered weekly in every mosque in Turkey by the Turkish State’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). By analyzing all sermons delivered between 2010-2021, the book shows how the Diyanet has enthusiastically adopted AKP’s increasingly Islamist, authoritarian, civilisationist, militarist and pro-violence populism since 2010, and how it has tried to socially engineer beliefs in line with this ideology.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) were elected to power in 2002 and since then Turkish politics has undergone considerable change. This book is a comprehensive analysis of the AKP and its politics in government, and will be an important contribution to Political Science, particularly the areas of Turkish politics, Middle Eastern studies, Islamic studies and comparative politics.

As a Muslim-majority country that is also a secular democratic state, a member of NATO, a candidate for membership in the European Union, a long-standing U.S. ally, and the host of Incirlik Air Base (a key hub for logistical support missions in Afghanistan and Iraq), Turkey is pivotal to U.S. and Western security interests in a critical area of the world. It also provides an example of the coexistence of Islam with secular democracy, globalization, and modernity. However, having a ruling party with Islamic roots--the Justice and Development Party (AKP)--within a framework of strict secularism has generated controversy over the boundaries between secularity and religion in the public sphere, leading to parliamentary elections, along with a new mandate for the party, in July 2007. This monograph describes the politico-religious landscape in Turkey and the relationship between the state and religion, and it evaluates how the balance between secular and religious forces--and between the Kemalist elites and new emerging social groups--has changed over the past decade. The study also assesses the new challenges and opportunities for U.S. policy in the changed Turkish political environment and identifies specific actions the United States may take to advance the U.S. interest in a stable, democratic, and friendly Turkey and, more broadly, in the worldwide dissemination of liberal and pluralistic interpretations of Islam.