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The Political Economy of Secularism in Turkey: Beyond Culturalist and Ideational Explanations

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Revisiting Secularism in Theory and Practice

Abstract

Secularism and its historical development have been a tense issue in the political development and modernization of Turkey. When the historiography on the evolution of the Turkish type of secularism is analyzed, one could observe that fact it is remarkably dominated by modernist and culturalist perspectives. In this article, after a critique of modernist and reductionist explanations in the literature on the historical constitution and evolution of secularism in Turkey, a critical political-economic perspective will be presented with a focus on the social struggle on the role and meaning of the religion and secularism in Turkey. For this purpose, the historical development of secularism will be analyzed not as an elite-led process or a mere reflection of the cultural dichotomy between the reforming ruling elites and masses. On the contrary, there would be an investigation based on the material sources of the rise of the secularist agenda, within the context of the formation of the political and legal construction of a viable regime of capitalist property relations and respective state control. In this context, strict state control on the religious affairs and assertive secularist reforms in the early Republican era, as well as the politicization of the religion during the multi-party years, will be comprehended via an analysis of the political-economic considerations of the ruling elites and different social classes competing on the role of the religion in the society. Such an understanding would eventually help to understand the current limits of the secularism in Turkey, as well as the ongoing hegemonic struggle over its content which would shape the future of the secularist regime.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As will be discussed in the following sections, current analyses on the rise of Anatolia-based capitalist fractions propose a similar dichotomy between “Islamic capital”—“Secularist capital” and assume a conflict between them, with an underestimation of merged interests and considerations in the political-economic reproduction of power.

  2. 2.

    The use of the term “reproduction” here is derived from the ideas of Marx (1977, p. 711), in Volume I of Capital, in Chap. 23, where he argues that “every social process of production is, at the same time, a process of reproduction.”

  3. 3.

    For a more comprehensive critic of these culturalist and institutionalist approaches, see Kaliber (2004), Güngen and Erten (2005), and Dinler (2003).

  4. 4.

    For a critic of such reductionism problem of explaining the change in the nineteenth-century Ottoman state and society with the impact of the international actors and factors, as well as underlining the importance of the internal factors, see El-haj (1991).

  5. 5.

    For a study based on an analysis of such continuity thesis, see Zürcher (1992).

  6. 6.

    For some studies on this issue, see Tuğal (2009) and Gürel (2015).

  7. 7.

    During the 1990s, large sections of the secularists and leftists in Turkey reacted to the globalization in a defensive (or reactive) nationalist way (e.g., in their reactions to the internationalization of capital) and underestimated both the sociological and political-economic role of the religion within the society.

  8. 8.

    For such an example to analyze Turkish secularism in a political-economic context, see Koçal (2012). For another article on the history of the secularization from the 1920s in Turkey, see Doğan (2016).

  9. 9.

    See Quataert (1994) and Akyıldız (2004).

  10. 10.

    See Wallerstein et al. (1979).

  11. 11.

    See Turan (2008).

  12. 12.

    Eisenstadt (2006) notes that Ottoman ulema enjoyed a much higher degree of autonomy when compared to the ulema in other Muslim societies. Partial state control on the ulema will be increased throughout the process of political centralization in Turkey.

  13. 13.

    See Dündar (2006) and Aktar (2010).

  14. 14.

    For a brilliant and comparative analysis on secularism, see also Peker (2016a).

  15. 15.

    As a result of these processes, rate of the non-Muslim population in the first quarter of the twentieth century would fall from 19% in 1914 to 2.5% in 1927, which is less than two per thousand by 2008. See İçduygu et al. (2008). See also Keyder (1987) and Barkey (2018).

  16. 16.

    See Gingeras (2009). See also Kieser (2014).

  17. 17.

    For a detailed analysis, see Peker (2016b).

  18. 18.

    On the cultural character of these revolts, see Brockett (2012).

  19. 19.

    As a matter of fact, the practice of the opening of the Village Institutes to change the economic and social-cultural structure of the countryside was contradicting with the failure of the single-party regime to initiate a Land Reform, namely the redistribution of the lands enjoyed by the large landlords, which could bring concrete results for such purposes. For a detailed debate, see Karaömerlioğlu (1998).

  20. 20.

    For a study analyzing Kurdish challenge to Republicanism, based on an analysis in the context of social integration versus system integration, see Boyraz and Turan (2016).

  21. 21.

    For the religious sermons read in the mosques in the early Republican years, which are prepared by Mustafa Kemal himself, see Usta (2005).

  22. 22.

    On the other hand, the process of the secularization of the curriculums in education and literature continued, for example, a secularist reorientation of the popular chapbooks, see Boratav (1946).

  23. 23.

    Peker (2016a, p. 249).

  24. 24.

    See Aktar (2012) and Guttstadt (2013).

  25. 25.

    See Karaömerlioğlu (2000, 2006) and Keyder (1987).

  26. 26.

    See Türkay (2002) and Keyder (1979). On the bourgeoisie demands in the Congress, represented by Istanbul Traders’ Association, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Istanbul Regional Industrial Association, the Turkish Association of Economists and the Turkish Economy Organization, see also Akgül (2008).

  27. 27.

    See Bilgiç and Bilgiç (2017). See also Uzun (2012).

  28. 28.

    For example, see Bora (1996).

  29. 29.

    For an analysis, see Azak (2008).

  30. 30.

    On the discourse and approach to the secularism of the Justice Party, see Demirel (2004).

  31. 31.

    For a discussion, see Karaveli (2016). In this context, as will be discussed later, one of the most important sources for the hegemony of the current governing party may be considered its capacity to manage such inner contradictions of capitalist accumulation and competition among different fractions of the bourgeoisie in Turkey.

  32. 32.

    For a historical analysis on the role of the DRA in general and its hegemonic instrumentality in the post-1980 conjuncture in particular, see also Lord (2018).

  33. 33.

    As Atasoy argued “Under Özal’s leadership the MP, although not an Islamist party, managed to establish a broad‐based coalition and promote the view that Turkey’s economic development projects should rest on the moral/cultural strength and legitimacy of Islam … The presence of a strong pro‐Islamic faction within the party was crucial in establishing a link between Muslim cultural values and a neo‐liberal economic development project.” (2009, p. 105).

  34. 34.

    For an analysis, see Yalman (2009) and Onis et al. (1992).

  35. 35.

    See Ayata (1996) and Çakır (1994).

  36. 36.

    See Celasun (1999).

  37. 37.

    For a political-economic analysis on the rise of the Welfare Party in Turkey, see Onis (1997).

  38. 38.

    See also Yankaya (2009).

  39. 39.

    For an analysis, see Onis (2012).

  40. 40.

    Neoliberal populism is instrumental and vital to demobilize mass reactions against the economic discontents of neoliberalism and associated political crisis of the democracies. In such context, neoliberal populism vital for the political organization of the subjection aims to create new non-class forms of identity and representation that attempt to disarticulate social conflict from material relations of power and re-embed social relations within increasingly moralized notions of community. See Jayasuriya and Hewison (2004).

  41. 41.

    Within the framework of the EU harmonization process, a reform package was introduced that includes reducing the influence of the military in politics, eradicating death penalty, abolishing the State Security Courts, strengthening gender equality, broadening freedom of press, restructuring the judiciary in European standards, and establishing the supremacy of international agreements over internal legislation. These practices both increased the party’s legitimacy in the eyes of the political and economic actors at the international level, as well as it provided a certain degree of increase of the party autonomy vis-a-vis the veto powers in the system. See Kumbaracibasi (2009).

  42. 42.

    For an example, see Ateş (2017).

  43. 43.

    Atasoy (2009, p. 133).

  44. 44.

    For such an analysis underlining the continuity, see Türk (2014).

  45. 45.

    See also Buğra (1998, 2002).

  46. 46.

    For an impressive study and counterargument on such promises of fairness and responsibility, underlining the use of Islamic values to neutralize inequalities in the working relations, see Durak (2011).

  47. 47.

    See also Coşar and Yeğenoğlu (2011).

  48. 48.

    For a debate, see Frank and Çelik (2017).

  49. 49.

    For a comprehensive study on different implications of the gender policies of the ruling party, see Dedeoğlu and Elveren (2012).

  50. 50.

    For the video record of the speech, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzqB876I7M.

  51. 51.

    See Bayhan and Gök (2017). For a particular case study issuing the extension of religious education in early childhood, see Aksoy and Eren Deniz (2018).

  52. 52.

    For a critique of such approaches based on the “axis of shift” in Turkish foreign policy, see Onis (2011). For the author, such kind of foreign policy activism based on solid political economy fundamentals may be considered as a shift for the party’s foreign policy to reproduce its power; however, it is rather a “crude characterization.”

  53. 53.

    See Hoffmann and Cemgil (2016).

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Boyraz, C. (2020). The Political Economy of Secularism in Turkey: Beyond Culturalist and Ideational Explanations. In: Ünsar, S., Ünal Eriş, Ö. (eds) Revisiting Secularism in Theory and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37456-3_8

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