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Islamist Moderation and the Resilience

of Gender: Turkey's Persistent Paradox
a
Gamze Çavdar
a
Colorado State University , USA
Published online: 22 Jan 2011.

To cite this article: Gamze Çavdar (2010) Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender:
Turkey's Persistent Paradox, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 11:3-4, 341-357, DOI:
10.1080/14690764.2010.546111

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 Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,
Vol. 11, Nos. 3–4, 341–357, September–December 2010

Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender:

Turkey’s Persistent Paradox

GAMZE ÇAVDAR*
Colorado State University, USA
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11
Totalitarian
1469-0764
Original
Taylor
2010
gamze@lamar.colostate.edu
GamzeCavdar
0000002010
3/4 & Article
Francis
(print)/1743-9647
Movements and Political
10.1080/14690764.2010.546111
FTMP_A_546111.sgm
and Francis (online)Religions

ABSTRACT As Islamists engage in ideological moderation, they tend to move away

from doctrinaire positions on the economy and foreign policy. However, this activity
is less apparent with respect to issues regarding women. What explains this varia-
tion? Using the Justice and Development Party (JDP) of Turkey as a case study, this
essay discusses how and why Islamist groups characteristically resist moderation
concerning gender, contending that this resilience stems from three inter-related
factors. First, women have become the symbol of Islamist movements, making gender
more resistant to change as opposed to peripheral issues. Second, the JDP seems to
have interests in portraying itself as resistant to change since it strategically uses this
conservatism to keep in touch with its traditional base. Third, a patriarchal party
structure places male values and interests above those of females and reconstructs
femininity as pertaining to family by making references to religious texts, custom and
tradition. Although playing a crucial role in mobilizing the constituency, women have
been systematically excluded from decision-making mechanisms of their party and
their activities have been confined to separate auxiliary organizations called Women’s
Branches.

Introduction
A number of recent studies argued that Islamist movements have gone
through gradual yet noticeable ideological change.1 Indeed, many Islamist
groups that previously criticized elections are now interested in electoral
participation, and some groups have adopted certain aspects of neoliberal

*Email: gamze@lamar.colostate.edu.
1
Omar Ashour, The De-Radicalization of Jihadists (New York: Routledge, 2009); Gamze Çavdar,
‘Islamist New Thinking in Turkey: A Model for Political Learning?’, Political Science Quarterly, 121:3
(2003), pp. 477–497; Mona Al-Ghobashy, ‘The Metamorphosis of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers’, In-
ternational Journal of Middle East Studies, 37:3 (2005), pp. 373–95; Jillian Schwedler, Faith in Modera-
tion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, ‘The Path to
Moderation; Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party’, Comparative Politics
36:2 (2004), pp. 205–228; Eva Wegner and Miquel Pellicer, ‘Islamist Moderation without Democrati-
zation: The Coming of Age of the Moroccan Party of Justice and Development’, Democratization, 16:1
(2009), pp. 157–175.

ISSN 1469-0764 Print/ISSN 1743-9647 Online/10/03-40341-17 © 2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14690764.2010.546111
 342 G. Çavdar

economic policies and moved away from their earlier anti-capitalist rhetoric.2
In addition, various groups have adopted pragmatic approaches in their
foreign policy choices, and some militant groups that previously resorted to
violence now renounce it.
Although ideological moderation has drawn scholarly attention in literature, no
systematic study has examined its impact on gender. Initial evidence from a number
of countries suggests that Islamists seem to move away from doctrinaire positions
on the economy and foreign policy more easily than with respect to women. Using
the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – JDP) of Turkey as
a case study, this essay discusses how and why Islamists characteristically resist
moderation concerning gender.
The JDP is an example par excellence of de-Islamization3 and, because it has been
in power since 2002, both its rhetoric and actual record can be examined. Estab-
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lished in 2001, the JDP won the general elections and formed majority govern-
ments in 2002 and 2007.4 While the JDP’s Islamist roots, its identity and goals,
capacity for democratization, and tension with the military have been subject to
thorough examination,5 its gender record remains understudied.6 Examination of
the JDP’s record on gender is telling, and sheds light on the nature of Islamist
transformation in the region in general and in Turkey in particular. Using the
process-tracing method, the study is based on both primary and secondary
sources. Anchored in field research conducted in Turkey in 2007 and 2009, the

2
I define Islamism along the lines described by Sheri Berman in ‘Islamism, Revolution, and Civil Soci-
ety’, Perspectives on Politics 1:2 (2003), pp. 257–272. Accordingly, Islamism is a social movement that
aims to mobilize Muslims into political action because of ‘the belief that Islam should guide social and
political as well as personal life’ (p. 258). Consequently, ‘Islam’ and ‘Islamism’ are two distinct phenom-
ena. The former is the religion, the followers of which are ‘Muslims’, while the latter is a political ide-
ology that Islamists pursue. Another critical distinction is that between the terms ‘Islamic’ and
‘Islamist’, as the former refers to anything that is of or related to Islam, while the latter relates to an ide-
ology, Islamism.
3
De-Islamization refers to ideological moderation through multiple processes during which Islamist ide-
ology is transformed. These processes include transformation of: (1) radical ideologies to become less
radical; and (2) Islamists to become non-Islamists. An examination of many Islamist groups over time
in the Middle East reveals that ideological moderation has met the criteria for the former phenomenon.
However, the Turkish case stands as the example par excellence for the latter, as this transformation is
the most explicit, clearly defined and drastic.
4
Many of the JDP’s top leaders were active participants in the Turkish Islamist movement. They repre-
sented a reformist wing within the previous Virtue Party, where they tried to take over the leadership
but failed. After the Virtue Party was closed down by a Constitutional Court order in 2001, the reform-
ists moved further away from their Islamist past and established the JDP, which became a coalition
among liberals, nationalists, conservatives and Islamists, while the traditional Islamist movement es-
tablished another party, named the Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party).
5
Simten Coşar and Aylin Özman, ‘Centre-right Politics in Turkey After the November 2002 General
sc[e]d
li

Election: Neo-Liberalism with a Muslim Face’, Contemporary Politics, 10:1 (2004), pp. 57–74; Sultan Tepe,
‘Turkey’s AKP: A Model “Muslim-Democratic” Party?’, Journal of Democracy, 16:3 (2005), pp. 69–82; d
I[ot

İhsan Dağı, ‘Turkey’s AKP in Power’, Journal of Democracy, 19:3 (2008), pp. 25–30; William Hale and Er-
] gb
e[v
re]

gun Ozbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP (New York: Routledge,
2009); Cihan Tugal Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2009).
6
Özlem Tür and Zana Çıtak, ‘AKP ve Kadın: Teşkilatlanma, Muhafazakârlık ve Türban’ [JDP and
sce[]d
li

Woman: Organization, Conservatism and Headscarf]’, in İlhan Uzgel and Bülent Duru (eds) AKP
d
I][ot

Kitabı: Bir Dönüşümün Bilançosu [The Book of the Justice and Development Party: The Balance Sheet of
]sced[li

a Transformation] (Ankara: Phoenix, 2009), pp. 614–628; Edibe Sözen, ‘Gender Politics of the JDP’, in
Hakan Yavuz (ed.) The Emergence of a New Turkey (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2006),
pp. 258–280.
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 343

analysis specifically relies on party handbooks, websites, newspapers, interviews

and secondary sources.
Three objectives drive this essay: (1) to demonstrate the uneven nature of ideo-
logical transformation through a comparison of the traditional Islamist parties
and the JDP with respect to the economy, foreign policy, and gender; (2) to
discuss the existing approaches that attempt to explain this variation by either
contending that ‘Islam is inherently hostile to gender equity’ or denying the
possibility of ideological change for Islamism in the first place; and (3) to argue
that neither of the existing approaches can fully explain the resistance of gender
to ideological transformation and propose an alternative explanation – that the
reasons for this resistance lie in its own historical roots, its strategic aspects and
the institutionalization and recreation of the gender hierarchies within the party
organization. Thus, these groups strategically employ the historical role of
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women as the symbol of Islamism to appease their conservative bases. Further-

more, a patriarchal party structure impedes adoption of a more egalitarian under-
standing of gender, placing male values and interests above those of females and
reconstructing femininity as pertaining solely to family. Although women have
been active participants of the party organization, they have been excluded from
decision-making mechanisms and their activities have been limited to separate
auxiliary organizations called Women’s Branches.

Islamist Movements and Gender

Founded in 2001, the JDP fundamentally differed from the traditional Islamist
movement, called National View [Millî Görüş], in a number of ways. First, the JDP
s[ce]dli

no longer pursues anti-Western foreign policy objectives. The previous Islamist

parties, namely the National Order Party [NOP, Millî Nizâmet Partisi (1970–1971)],
National Salvation Party [NSP, Millî Selâmet Partisi (1973–1981)], the Welfare
Party [WP, Refah Partisi (1983–1998)] and the Virtue Party [VP, Fazîlet Partisi
(1997–2001)], displayed a strong anti-Western stance.7 This position was best
articulated in the Welfare Party’s programme called the Just Order [Âdil Düzen],8
and it was argued that the ‘hopeless efforts’ of imitating the West were directly
responsible for a number of political and economic problems that Turkey had
long suffered from. Therefore, the WP argued, the National View was about no
longer imitating the West but about going back to one’s origin.9 Necmettin Erba-
kan, then Chairman of the WP, asserted that Turkey belonged to the community
of Muslim-dominated countries. Turkey’s prospect of membership in the EU
meant that ‘Turkey disengages from the community of Muslim-dominated coun-
tries [and] joins the imperialist and Zionist camp’.10 In fact, for Erbakan, ‘what

7
This point was less so for the Virtue Party, which was in essence a transitional party moving from a
traditional Islamist party to a reformist one. See Fazilet Partisi, Fazilet Partisi Genel Ba şkanı M. Recai
]sced[li

Kutan’ın Seçim Beyannamesi Basın Toplantısı [Press Conference of Recai Kutan, the Chairman of the
Virtue Party, for Electoral Platform] ( İstanbul: Fazilet Partisi, 20 March 1999).
d
I[]ot

8
See Millî Selâmet Partisi 1973 Seçim Beyannamesi [The 1973 Election Platform of the National Salvation
Party] (İstanbul: Fatih Yayınevi Matbaası, 1973); Necmettin Erbakan, Yıkılan Tabular [Taboos are being
Destroyed] (Ankara, Turkey: Refah Partisi, 21 October 1992).
9
Necmettin Erbakan, Aktüel Olaylar ve Milli Görü ş [Contemporary Issues and the National View]
]sced[li

(Ankara: Refah Partisi, 2 December 1992).

10
Necmettin Erbakan, Refah Partisi 3. Olağan Büyük Kongresi [Welfare Party’s Third Convention] (Ankara:
gvb[e]r

Refah Partisi, 7 October 1990), p. 30.

 344 G. Çavdar

NATO currently does is to pursue anti-Muslim policies’, asserting that Turkey

should, instead, ‘seek a common defence union with other Muslim countries’.11
Second, in contrast to its predecessors, the JDP has become a staunch advo-
cate of neo-liberal economic policies. Anti-capitalist rhetoric was particularly
evident in the WP’s Just Order, and accordingly, the capitalist system was
depicted as a form of modern colonialism and slavery.12 The programme advo-
cated economic independence and promoted a system that combined state inter-
vention with a private sector,13 and the WP hailed this economic policy as an
alternative to both communism and capitalism. Erbakan argued that the capital-
ist system ‘creates a gap between the rich and the poor and therefore causes
social explosions’14 and that, ‘like communism, capitalism is bound to
collapse’.15 Instead of implementing the IMF-imposed structural adjustment
programmes, Erbakan insisted that Turkey should seek a common currency
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with other Muslim-dominated countries.16

Abandoning this anti-EU, anti-NATO and anti-IMF rhetoric, the JDP declared
its allegiance to Turkey’s prospective EU membership, promised to stay with
NATO and to implement the IMF’s structural adjustment policies, and showed no
interest in a common defence or customs union with other Muslim-dominated
countries. On the day it was established in 2001, for instance, the new party
openly and strongly declared its allegiance to a market economy where privatiza-
tion was advocated even in the areas of education and health.17 Conservative
democracy, not the National View, was identified as the new party’s ideology. In
domestic politics, the anti-system rhetoric was replaced by an accommodationist,
non-confrontational and pro-systemic tone replete with praise and respect for
secularism, the military and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.18
Still, the JDP’s rhetoric on women and men is marked by continuity rather than
change. The JDP’s programme shares two characteristics with the previous
parties. First, women are categorically sidelined as they are hardly mentioned in
party documents. Second, whenever women are mentioned, it is usually within
the context of family or with reference to the headscarf controversy. Examples of

11
Refah Partisi ve 1 Kasım Zaferi [Refah Partisi ve October 1st Victory] (Ankara: Refah Partisi, n.d.),
pp. 34–35.
12
Teşhis: Türkiye′nin Gerçek Durumu, Sebepleri [Diagnosis: Turkey’s Real Condition and Its Causes]
(Ankara: Refah Partisi, n.d.).
13
Necmettin Erbakan, Türkiye’nin Meseleleri ve Çözümleri [Turkey’s Problems and Solutions] (Ankara,
Turkey: Refah Partisi, 1991), pp. 33–35; Adil Düzen 21 Soru 21 Cevap [Just Order: 21 Questions 21
Answers] (Ankara: Refah Partisi, n.d.), pp. 1–2.
14
Erbakan, op. cit., p. 3.
15
Refah Partisi ve 1 Kasim Zaferi [Refah Partisi and the October 1st Victory] (Ankara: Refah Partisi, n.d.),
p. 5.
16
Ibid., p. 20.
17
Hürriyet 14 August 2001.
18
The JDP government’s foreign policy during its second term (2007–present) has been charged with an
‘axis shift’, which refers to a fundamental departure from the traditional secular and pro-Western for-
eign policy. These allegations mostly stem from the JDP government’s occasional confrontation with
Israel regarding the Palestinian issue and pursuit of close relations with Iran and Syria, which is not
always in agreement with US policy. Despite this often-articulated concern and criticism inside and
outside Turkey, the JDP’s recent foreign policy, albeit active, can be hardly characterized as Islamist.
The JDP still aspires for Turkey’s EU membership, continues its economic and political relations with
the West and does not take Islam as the guiding principle of its interests. See Yüksel Ta şkın, ‘Turkey’s
Search for Regional Power’, MERIP, 21 August 2010, available at http://www.merip.org/mero/
mero082110.html (accessed 21 August 2010).
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 345

these two characteristics abound. The National Salvation Party’s Programme of

1973 only briefly discussed women’s rights in relation to their instrumental roles
in society, and it adopted a protectionist tone by proposing to establish an organi-
zation to keep ‘our women’s dignity and honor, to prevent them from working at
unsuitable jobs for themselves, and to save them from working outside their
homes because of economic hardship’.19 The infamous Just Order of the WP also
had no mention of women.20 Similarly, women were only referred to within the
context of education reform and dress code in the 1999 Electoral Platform of the
Virtue Party.21
Even a brief survey of the regional Islamist groups and parties in the Middle
East region suggests that the JDP’s uneven transformation is not an isolated
phenomenon. Many Islamist groups in the region have displayed ideological
moderation over the last decades, but have shown greater resilience regarding
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their understanding of gender.22 The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood [Ikhwan al-

Muslumin-MB], for instance, long ago moved away from radical interpretations
under the influence of Sayyid Qutb and has come to work within the parameters
of limited political participation. Since it renounced violence in the 1970s, the MB
has been acting as a de facto political party and currently holds 88 seats (out of 444)
in the Egyptian parliament [Majlis Al-Shura].23 However, although the Sisters, a
separate and parallel organization for the female members, have been quite
active, they are excluded from decision-making mechanisms. Under great pres-
sure from the Sisters, the MB fielded female candidates for the first time in 2000
and again in 2005, but its 2007 programme clearly denied leadership positions to
women.24 The Islamic Action Front of Jordan [Jabhat Al-Amal Al-Islami-IAF] has
also become moderate as its ‘relatively closed and rigid worldview’ turned into
‘one more open and tolerant of alternative perspectives’.25 Yet, the IAF advocates
‘sexual segregation within specific ministries, ban[ing of] male hairdressers from
female clientele and prevent[ion of] men (including fathers) from watching girls’
sports’.26 Moreover, the IAF also opposed attempts to reform the Personal Status
Laws of Jordan in 2004. Although the Justice and Development Party of Morocco
[Hizb al-Adala wa al-Tanmiyya, MJDP] declared its adherence to democracy, it
supported the proposals to amend the Family Code [Mudawwana] granting better

19
Millî Selâmet Partisi 1973 Seçim Beyannamesi, op. cit., pp. 65–66.
20
Necmettin Erbakan, Adil Ekonomik Düzen [Just Economic Order] (Ankara, Turkey: Refah Partisi,
1991).
21
Fazilet Partisi Seçim Beyannamesinde Ilkeler-Hedefler [Principles and Goals of the Virtue Party’s Electoral
Platform] (İstanbul, Turkey: n.p., 18 April 1999).
22
Nathan J. Brown, Amr Hamzawy and Marina Ottoway, ‘Islamist Movements and the Democratic Pro-
cess in the Arab World: Exploring the Gray Zones’, Carnegie Papers, no. 67 (2006), available at http://
www.carnegieendowment.org/files/cp_67_grayzones_final.pdf, December 2009 (accessed 12 January
2010).
23
The MB’s latest party programme was issued in 2007, even though the group has remained banned
since 1954. ‘Barnamaj Hizb Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslumin’ [The Programme for the Party of the Muslim
Brotherhood], The Muslim Brotherhood Home Page, available at http: www.islamonline.net/Arabic/
Daawa/2007/08/00.doc, 25 August 2007 (accessed 2 February 2010).
24
Omayma Abdel-Latif, ‘In the Shadow of the Brothers: The Women of the Egyptian Muslim Brother-
hood’, Carnegie Papers, no. 13 (2008), available at http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/
women_egypt_muslim_brotherhood.pdf, (accessed 2 February 2010); ‘Barnamaj Hizb Al-Ikhwan Al-
Muslumin’ (op. cit.).
25
Schwedler, op. cit., p. 3.
26
Janine A. Clark and Amy E. Young, ‘Islamism and Family Law Reform in Morocco and Jordan’,
Mediterranean Politics, 13:3 (2008), p. 333.
 346 G. Çavdar

rights to women only after domestic developments and intense pressure from
women activists.27 Although Islamist groups vary widely, a brief overview
suggests that gender-related issues are characteristically not the frontrunners of
transformation and moderation. However, this characterization is neither
unchanging nor invariant across cases. What Islamist groups have in common is
not an identical understanding of gender, but rather a resilience to change. What
accounts for this resilience?

Explaining the Resilience

One of the most common explanations for the low status of women in Muslim
societies is attributed to Islam as a belief system. In ‘The True Clash of Civiliza-
tions’, Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris argue that the ‘real fault line between
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the West and Islam … [concerns] gender equality and sexual liberalization’.28
Accordingly, this fault line had serious repercussions as:

… this ‘sexual clash of civilizations’ taps into far deeper issues than
Muslim countries’ treatment of women. A society’s commitment to
gender equality and sexual liberalization proves time and again to be the
most reliable indicator of how strongly that society supports principles of
toleration and egalitarianism.29

Similarly, David Landes and Richard Landes argued that:

Muslim women are excluded from much of public space … [making]

Muslim societies substantially less productive. … [And] the oppression
of women may not only help explain why Islamic societies have fallen
behind the West. It may also help explain why they find the West so
culturally threatening. Israel – where women don bikinis on the beach,
attend university in large numbers, and are required to serve in the
military – represents a deeply subversive example for many of its
Middle Eastern neighbors. Osama bin Ladin, in particular, has voiced
outrage at the presence of American women soldiers on Saudi soil.
Might he be worried that the women of the Gulf are watching them and
taking note?30

Highly ethnocentric, this explanation has fundamental flaws, the most impor-
tant of which is its inability to explain diversity among Muslim societies and
change over time. Moreover, it fails to distinguish two distinct phenomena –
Islam, a religion, and Islamism, the mobilization of Islam for political purposes.31
27
Katie Zoglin, ‘Morocco’s Family Code: Improving Equality for Women’, Human Rights Quarterly 31
(2009), pp. 964–984.
28
Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, ‘The True Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Policy 135 (2003),
pp. 64–65.
29
Ibid., p. 65.
30
David S. Landes and Richard A. Landes. ‘Girl Power: Do Fundamentalists Fear Our Women?’, New
Republic (8 October 2001), p. 20.
31
This mistake is quite common in literature and was also made even in famous works such as
Samuel Huntington’s ‘For a Critique’, see James. G. Mellon, ‘Islam and International Politics: Exam-
ining Huntington’s “Civilizational Clash” Thesis’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 2:1
(2001), pp. 73–83.
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 347

The exclusive focus on Islam as the determining factor for gender inequity fails to
acknowledge the vast diversity among beliefs, customs, and legal systems – some
of which are fully secular, as in Turkey and Tunisia. Islamic laws implemented in
other countries are by no means identical. Echoing an Orientalist tone, these fail-
ures are related to questionable assumptions, such as the notion that Islam is
unique and that it determines all aspects of Muslim societies. How can we
account for the vast variations among Muslim societies, then? What about the
roles played by class, gender systems, economic development, and state policies
in shaping and influencing women’s lives?32
A second explanation relates to Islamist groups’ seeming transformation of
their agenda, which is only a tactic, a strategic calculation to adapt to changing
conditions. Their main goal of Islamizing the state and society remains the same,
to be resumed when the conditions are right.
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The case of the JDP is particularly interesting. Owing to Turkey’s strict secular
system, no party is allowed that rests on the grounds of religion. Because admit-
ting Islamist goals would immediately bring a party down, the JDP’s insistence
that it has no agenda of Islamizing the state and society is not by itself able to
convince the sceptics inside and outside the country. For instance, Bassam Tibi
argued that:

Since their electoral landslide victory in November 2002, Islamists within

Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi,
AKP) have camouflaged themselves as ‘democratic Islamic conserva-
tives’. The AKP claims to be the Muslim equivalent of the Christian-
Democratic parties of Western Europe. Such an analogy is false, however.
What the AKP seeks is not ‘Islam without fear’ … [but] rather a strategy
for a creeping Islamization that culminates in a Shari‘a (Islamic law) state
not compatible with a secular, democratic order. The AKP does not
advertise this agenda and often denies it.33

Similarly, Zeyno Baran argued that the JDP comprises, in fact, ‘patient Islam-
ists’, hiding their true intentions behind a rhetoric of democracy, freedom and
human rights.34 The implication of this view, then, is that the Islamist acceptance
of procedural aspects of democracy is only a tactic and that lack of mastery of
gender equity is indicative that the party has not fully given up on its Islamist
ideals.
Although Islamists can conceivably use the rhetoric of moderation for instru-
mental purposes, an upfront dismissal of their claims seems to be an a priori
assumption that implies the impossibility of ideological moderation. Islamist goals,
tactics and ideals do show great variation, and claims of transformation need to be
assessed on a case-by-case basis through empirical analysis. Ideological modera-
tion, therefore, may not hold for every Islamist group. However, the above view
singles out Islamists because of its upfront dismissal of the claims about change.
Furthermore, in the case of the JDP, this characterization oversimplifies the

32
Valentine M. Moghadam, Modernizing Women Gender and Social Change in the Middle East (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), pp. 1–27.
33
Bassam Tibi, ‘Islamists Approach Europe: Turkey’s Islamist Danger’, Middle East Quarterly (2009),
p. 47.
34
Zeyno Baran, ‘Turkey Divided’, Journal of Democracy, 19:1 (2008), p. 57.
 348 G. Çavdar

complexity of party politics by failing to recognize the party’s metamorphosis on

some issue-areas and its differences from predecessors.35
This essay argues that neither references to Islam nor the argument based on
Islamist strategic calculation can satisfactorily provide an answer to the ques-
tion of heterogeneous transformation of Islamist agendas. The alternative histor-
ical institutionalist approach employs an argument based on the historical
trajectory of Islamist movements, the calculation of political actors and the insti-
tutional structure of their organizations. First, historical institutionalism starts
with the assumption that history matters.36 The concept of ‘path dependence’,
embedded in historical institutionalism, aims to explain how certain historical
experiences, such as patriarchy, ‘lock in’ and become a defining characteristic of
a group identity. Second, this approach does indeed acknowledge that political
actors are rational and engage in strategic calculation, but considers this ratio-
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nality context-dependent. In fact, ‘the definition of interests and objectives is

created in institutional contexts and is not separable from them’.37 Using the
case of the Penal Code, the essay illustrates the resilience concerning the legal
system and the strategic use of conservatism. Third, this approach analyses
institutions with a gender lens. Although traditional historical institutionalism
has not asked how institutional contexts reinforce asymmetry of power between
men and women, thus recreating gender hierarchies, a handful of researchers
have recently combined gender analysis with historical institutionalism.38 As
detailed below, this asymmetry of power can be best demonstrated through an
analysis of the women’s branches, a separate and auxiliary organization within
the party.

Historical Roots of Resilience: Women as Symbols

The modernization project has long polarized reformists and conservatives over
the issue of women. Taking Western modernization as a model, the reformists
believed that the creation of a modern society would be impossible with a legal
system derived from Islamic law and criticized such practices as gender segre-
gation, polygamy and wearing of the headscarf. Thus, since the Tanzimat
Reforms of the Ottoman Empire (1839–1876) and the Republican reforms of
Turkey, reformists have long promoted a limited role for Islam in public life as

35
Sultan Tepe has successfully demonstrated the complexity of the JDP policies and the difficulty of
identifying it with a clear ideological camp. See ‘Turkey’s AKP: A Model “Muslim-Democratic”
Party?’, Journal of Democracy, 16:3 (2005), pp. 69–82.
36
For major institutionalist figures and books, see Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, and Huge
Comparisons (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1984); Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen and Frank
Longstreth (eds), Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1992); Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966); Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis
of France, Russia and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
37
John Zysman, ‘How Institutions Create Historically Rooted Trajectories of Growth’, Industrial
and Corporate Change, 3:1 (1994), p. 244 quoted in Kathleen Thelen, ‘Historical Institutionalism in
Comparative Politics’, Annual Review of Political Science, 2 (1999), p. 375.
38
Georgina Waylen, Engendering Transitions: Women’s Mobilization, Institutions and Gender Outcomes
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Mounira Charrad, States and Women’s Rights: The Making of
Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001); Georgina
Waylen, ‘What Can Historical Institutionalism Offer to Feminist Institutionalists?’, Gender and Politics,
5:2 (2009), pp. 245–253.
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 349

well as advocating education and Western clothing for women.39 The top-down
and far-reaching modernization project of the young Republic constituted a
critical juncture for gender roles, which were mainly assigned as part of the
nation-building process. Thus, through secular laws and institutions, the
promotion of women’s education and labour market participation, and democ-
ratization, the new republican elite aimed to break from the Islamic heritage of
the Ottoman empire, thereby reinforcing ‘the development of a secular ideology
that would legitimize the new state’.40 Women were particularly targeted
during this process and treated ‘as a symbol and tool of modernization and
Westernization’.41 For instance, although legal regulations concerning the head-
scarf were not formally adopted during the initial years of the republic, as
Burçak Keskin-Kozat argued, the republican elite ‘informally discouraged the
veil as the ultimate symbol of traditional backwardness’.42 The Islamist move-
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ments emerged against this background, insisting that the modernization could
be attained only by adopting the technological advancements of the West, while
‘advocating reconstruction of the moral order that has been disrupted or
changed. In this context, gender has become increasingly problematized and
politicized’.43 Like other social transformation projects, therefore, Islamist move-
ments have paid special attention to women, meticulously identifying the
parameters of permissible social, economic and political actions, and the topic
of headscarf has dominated much of the discourse on women.44 Islamism is an
alternative modernization project that is based on ‘family life, authenticity and
adherence to the Islamic law’.45 The clash of these two worldviews within the
Turkish context makes the polarization between secularists and Islamists
distinct from other cleavages along ethnic, sectarian and ideological lines as this
historical war over different conceptions of modernization has mostly been
fought over women.46 It is this path dependence that has largely shaped the
tension between the two.
The JDP still carries this legacy. Thanks to the historical heritage detailed
above, the family and women’s societal roles continue to be a major theme for
JDP. The JDP programme explicitly states that women are significant, ‘not
because they constitute the half of the population, but because they play the
primary role in raising the next generations’.47 Here, the task of mothering, the

39
There was no law or regulation banning traditional women’s clothing. Yeşim Arat, Rethinking Islam
sce[]d
li

and Liberal Democracy Islamist Women in Turkish Politics (New York: State University of New York,
2005); Jenny White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (Seattle, WA: Washington University Press: 2002);
Zehra Arat, ‘Kemalism and Turkish Women’, Women and Politics, 14:4 (1994), pp. 57–80.
40
Arat, op. cit., p. 73.
41
Ibid.
42
Burçak Keskin-Kozat, ‘Entangled in Secular Nationalism, Feminism and Islamism’, Cultural Dynamics,
15 (2003), pp. 183–211.
43
Valentine M. Moghadam, ‘Rhetorics and Rights of Identity in Islamist Movements’, Journal of World
History, 4:2 (1993), p. 243.
44
Nilüfer Göle, Modern Mahrem (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996); Fatma Müge
Göçek, ‘To Veil or not to Veil the Contested Location of Gender in Contemporary Turkey’, International
Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 1 (1999), pp. 521–535.
45
Moghadam, op. cit.
46
Gamze Çavdar, ‘To Branch or not to Branch? Women and Political Parties in Turkey’, Kadın/Woman
2000 Journal for Woman Studies, VII:1 (2006), pp. 91–125.
47
The JDP’s Party Programme, available at http://www.akparti.org.tr/parti-programi_79.html
(accessed 11 April 2010).
 350 G. Çavdar

task of caring for children, has been automatically assigned to women while no
similar task is available for men. This point is critical in identifying the sources of
contradictory discourses and practices for the JDP government. For instance, the
party programme promises to eliminate discriminatory provisions in the legal
system, but without defining what constitutes discrimination against women.
Neither is gender equity listed as an objective. The focus on the family is also the
case for the Election Manifest, where the idealization of the family is a major
theme.48 Accordingly, the traditional family structure in Turkey, where the task
of mothering is almost exclusively done by women, was identified as the major
reason why ‘the Turkish society has been able to maintain its strength despite
social and economic crises’.49 No connection has been drawn between the much-
praised family structure and gender discrimination, a point defended by Nimet
Çubukçu, a former state minister for women and family:
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We attach great importance to family values and women’s position

within the family. We care about women’s role as a mother. In addition to
defining their rights as individuals, we would like to proceed without
harming the family, family values and the peaceful relationship between
the spouses.50

While women seem to be encouraged to participate in public life, their tradi-

tional roles within the family are contradictorily prioritized and even encour-
aged. Therefore, the JDP’s own policies constantly undermine the discourse that
more women should participate in public life and Erdoğan’s declaration that gb
ev
[re]

‘the discrimination against women is as dangerous and wrong as racism’.51

These include Erdoğan’s insistence that women should have at least three chil-
gb
e[v
re]

dren as well as a new reform eliminating childcare and nursing room require-
ments for employers and reducing maternity leave from six months to one
month.52 In fact, the decline in women’s employment has continued during the
JDP governments.53
The historic legacy that the JDP inherited from the Islamist movement lies at the
heart of its conservatism, a point articulated in the JDP’s handbook, Conservative
Democracy.54 In reference to the JDP’s deviation from the statist economic policies
of previous Islamist parties, the handbook stated that ‘this flexibility is related to
the fact that for the conservative ideology, unlike liberalism and socialism, the
question of economic policy does not constitute a principled issue-area where
ideology dictates’.55 Gender politics, apparently, is just the opposite, for here
ideology is paramount.

48
Seçim Bildirgesi, 2002, available at www.akparti.org.tr/…/SEÇİ M%20beyanname-KISALTILMIŞ.doc
[Ido]t S[c]ed
li

(accessed 20 March 2010).

49
Ibid., p. 34.
50
Yeni Şafak, 19 November 2006.
S
[]cedli

51
Yeni Safak, 29 January 2006.
52
Hürriyet, 8 March 2008.
53
Women’s labour market participation dropped from 34% in 1988 to 27% in 2000 and 22% in 2007/
2008. See Türkiye’de Kadınların İşgücüne Katılımı, Report no. 48508-TR, TC Başbakanlık ve Devlet Plan-
sd
c[I]ed
o
]lti s[ce]dli

lama Teşkilatı, 23 November 2009, available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/TURKEYEXTN/

s[ce]dli

Resources/361711-1268839345767/Female_LFP-tr.pdf (accessed 24 August 2010).

54
Yalçın Akdoğan, Muhafazak ăr Demokrasi (Ankara, Turkey: n.p., 2003).
gb
ev
[re] v]aebr[

55
Ibid., p. 36.
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 351

Strategic Calculation: The Legal Record

Resistance to adopting a more egalitarian understanding of gender relations also
plays a strategic role in appeasing the conservative constituency, reminding them
that the groups remain committed to traditional values. For example, under the
JDP governments, Turkey undertook some of its most comprehensive legal
changes, including amendments to the Constitution and the Penal Code, in which
a large number of non-egalitarian clauses were eliminated.56 Although the legal
record constitutes the most progressive pillar of the JDP government’s record, a
closer examination demonstrates that the deliberations and the amendments
themselves reflect the JDP’s gender bias. The Panel Code offers a case study to
demonstrate this point.
As detailed below, the amendments were accompanied by strong lobbying and
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advocacy efforts of a coalition of women’s and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transsexual) non-governmental organizations. Their campaigning seized the
moment, not only in making legislative advances but also by raising public
awareness about gender biases in legal provisions. Specifically, the outcome of
the legislative process was successful largely through the combination of a
number of factors: first, women’s organizations had already formed the largest
coalition, with more than 120 organizations, and had been successfully campaign-
ing for provisional changes when the JDP government was formed in 2002.57
Despite their ideological differences, these organizations all shared a deep
concern about improving women’s lives.58 They had successfully worked with
the previous coalition government in challenging the supremacy of men in the
Family Code. Inspired and motivated by this success, the women’s non-
governmental organizations (WNGOs) had formed The Women’s Working
Group on the Panel Code (WWGPC), which prepared a draft Code eliminating
discriminatory provisions and sent it out to the members of parliament (MB).59
Second, the requirements of Turkey for EU application and the CEDAW (Conven-
tion on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) provided
an opportunity for the organizations to keep their demands on the agenda. Third,
the WNGOs were able to successfully build coalitions with the mainstream media
which, to a large extent, remained sceptical of the JDP’s claims to value gender
equality.60 Fourth, the JDP came under intense political pressure from the EU.
Lastly, women advocates adopted a holistic approach by emphasizing the indi-
visibility of their demands and threatened to call off the meetings unless their
demands were met in their entirety. Under the media spotlight and under intense
pressure to prove a non-Islamist record, the JDP government was forced to adopt

56
For the extensive list of legal changes, see Türkiye’nin Kadınları Umudun Adımları Ak Parti İ ktidarında ]dI[ot

Kadın [Turkey’s Women Steps of Hope Woman during the AKP Government] (Ankara: AK Parti Genel
Merkez Kadın Kolları Başkanlığı, n.d.); Ak Parti İ ktidarında Kadın Hakları ve Fırsat Eşitliği Alanında
gb
ev
[re] ]dI[ot s[ce]dli g[bver]

Gerçeklestirilen Yasal Düzenlemeler [The Legal Changes Concerning Women’s Rights during The AK
Party Government] (Ankara; AK Parti Genel Merkez Kadın Kolları Başkanlığı, n.d.).
sce[]d
li gb
e[v
re]

57
Author’s interview with Nesrin Semiz, the Secretary General of Başkent Kadın Platformu Derneği
sce[]d
li gb
[ev
re]

(the Association for Capital Women’s Platform), 20 July 2009, Ankara, Turkey.
58
Ibid.
59
For an insider’s analysis of the women’s successful campaigning, see Pınar Ilkkaracan and Liz Ercevik
Amado, ‘Good Practices in Legislation on Violence Against Women in Turkey and Problems of Imple-
mentation’ (UN Office at Vienna, Austria, 23 May 2008), available at http://www.un.org/women-
watch/daw/egm/vaw_legislation_2008/vaw_legislation_2008.htm (accessed 2 May 2010).
60
Ilkkaracan and Amado, op. cit.
 352 G. Çavdar

about 45 out of 50 demands outlined by the WWGPC.61 Pınar Ilkkaracan, a lead-

ing women’s activist who participated in the negotiations, explained that this
process took three agonizing years, during which the government resisted
making progressive changes in every possible way.62
Indeed, the amendment of the Penal Code, which was put on the agenda as
part of Turkey’s bid to become a full EU candidate, came with major resistance
and a series of crises.63 Frustrated with the government’s refusal to even meet, the
WNGOs pursued an intensive campaign called ‘The Campaign for the Reform of
the Turkish Penal Code from a Gender Perspective’. The government draft finally
obtained was shocking to women’s NGOs: the draft ‘threatened to swipe the
progress Turkish women had made over decades, because it seemed to keep the
original Penal Code of 1926, which was imported from Mussolini’s Italy’.64
Indeed, the draft code contained clauses stipulating a lesser penalty for sex
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offenders if the victim is unmarried, providing no penalty for sex offenders if a

rape victim marries her rapist, and stating a lesser penalty for sex offenders if the
victim – even if underage – ‘consents’. The Women’s Platform strongly
condemned these discriminatory clauses and demanded to be included in the
process.
A significant milestone in the campaign against the draft was achieved by sheer
coincidence during a parliamentary sub-commission meeting. Referring to the
bill’s clause that set sex offenders are freed if the victim marries her rapist, Doğan gb
[ev
re]

Soyaslan, a chief consultant to the justice minister, argued that encouraging

women to marry their rapists is a better outcome for them since nobody else
would want to marry them: ‘Every man in this country wants to marry a virgin,
and those who say otherwise are lying’.65 These comments caused widespread
reaction in the media and the bill received unprecedented publicity.66 Some female
JDP representatives also joined the fray.67 Thanks to the media’s attention, the
Platform’s call was able to reach a wider audience and raise public awareness.68
Under this intense pressure, the government finally agreed to work with the
WWGPC, but not without a surprising caveat: the JDP government included a
clause in the draft bill to criminalize adultery.69 Erdoğan argued that the bill was
gb
[ev
re]

necessary for gender equity, stating that it was meant to protect wives from
cheating husbands,70 Güldal Akşit, then state minister for women and family,
sce[]d
li

argued that the bill was in line with ‘our custom and tradition’.71 Recep Akdağ, gb
ev
[re]

then minister of health, argued that the bill would help with the fight against
AIDS.72 Criticism mounted both domestically and internationally. The WWGPC

61
Author’s interview with Pinar Ilkaracan (on the phone), 14 April 2010.
62
Ibid.
63
The New Penal Code was accepted in Law no. 5237, which came into effect as of 1 April 2005.
64
Author’s Interview with Ilkkaracan (note 62).
65
Hürriyet, 23 October 2003.
66
For Ferai Tunç and Murat Bardakçı’s comments, see Hürriyet, 26 December 2003 and 30 November
2003, respectively.
67
Sabah, 23 November 2003.
68
Hürriyet, 3 November 2003.
69
Pınar Ilkkaracan, ‘How Adultery Almost Derailed Turkey’s Aspiration to Join the European Union’,
in P. Ilkkaracan (ed.), Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East: Challenges and Discourses (London:
Ashgate, 2008), pp. 41–64.
70
Milliyet, 4 September, 2004.
71
Ibid.
72
Milliyet, 11 September, 2004.
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 353

insisted that the bill would only increase control and violence towards women;73
columnists who previously supported the JDP government vehemently opposed
the bill;74 and the domestic media repeatedly reported foreign media reactions.75
The strongest foreign reaction came from the EU. Günter Verheugen, then
European commissioner for enlargement, stated immediately that this bill would
tarnish Turkey’s image,76 and Elmar Brok, then chair of the European Parliament
Foreign Affairs Committee, announced that membership negotiations would not
even begin if Turkey criminalized adultery.77
The government withdrew the bill shortly after its introduction on 14 September
and the new Penal Code was finally approved by the parliament, which voted for
most of the demands put forward by the WNGOs. However, the JDP’s last-minute
attempt to criminalize adultery is indicative of its efforts to keep in touch with its
conservative base: as Ilkkaracan observed, ‘the attempt came as a surprise even to
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AKP members of the sub-commission, confirming the impression that this move
was a political strategy employed by the Prime Minister’,78 which seemed to send
a message to the conservative constituency that the party remained committed to
its core values.
Despite the improvements, the egalitarian legal system fell short for two
reasons. First, discriminatory clauses remained in the new Code, including inade-
quate measures against eradicating ‘honour killings’. The new code eliminated
reduced sentences for ‘custom killings’ [töre suçları], which refers to the practice of
‘family assembly’, but kept the category of ‘honour killings’ [namus suçları], which
refers to individual practices.79 The latter is not included in the category of ‘aggra-
vated homicide’, which would make it subject to imprisonment for life, while the
former is. Women’s groups argued against this distinction, insisting that it would
be almost impossible to prove that a family decision lay behind a killing and that
this category would only benefit the killers by reducing their sentences.80 The
New Penal Code also brought more reductions for those crimes committed under
the influence of ‘unjust provocation’ (haksız tahrik).81 The implications of these
reductions have been significant. According to a research study, 46 of 59 ‘honour
killing’ cases benefited from this reduction between 1999 and 2005.82 Second, as
women’s NGOs have consistently argued, even egalitarian amendments do not
guarantee egalitarian outcomes since abstract equity before the law rarely
guarantees de facto equity.
73
Hürriyet, 8 September 2004.
74
Hürriyet, 13 September 2004.
75
Milliyet, 7 September 2004.
76
Milliyet, 9 September 2004.
77
Miliyet, 9 September 2004.
78
Ilkkaracan, op. cit.
79
These are indeed artificial categories as both are the types of crimes committed by men against wom-
en in the name of preserving men’s ‘honour’. According to the amended code, the ‘honour killings’
might be subject to reduced sentences on the basis of ‘unjust provocation’, while the ‘custom killings’
are not. By making this distinction, the law not only establishes double standards for the same crime
but also reinforces the concept of women as property.
80
Hürriyet, 13 September 2004.
81
‘Unjust provocation’ means that the offender acts under the influence of rage caused by an unjust act.
If this condition is met, the offender gets a reduced sentence. In the case of murder, the offender’s sen-
tence may be subject to reductions ranging from one-quarter to three-quarters of a life sentence. See the
New Penal Code (no. 5237), accepted at 24 September 2004, available at http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/ka-
nunlar/k5237.html (accessed 23 May 2008).
82
Radikal, 15 July 2006.
 354 G. Çavdar

Institutional Recreation of Hierarchy: Women’s Branches

The poor representation of women within the decision-making mechanism of the
party organization in parliament and the cabinet, considered endemic in political
life in Turkey, has improved only slightly during the first and second JDP terms:
the number of female ministers increased from one to two (out of 24) and the
number of female representatives in the general assembly increased from 13 (out
of 365) to 28 (out of 341).83 The general elections of 2007 witnessed an increase in
female representatives for all parties, from 24 (out of 550) to 48 (out of 550), while
their representation within the decision-making mechanisms of their own parties
has not improved significantly.84
The headscarf ban precludes political parties from fielding headscarf-wearing
women as candidates for the Grand National Assembly, and thereby constitutes a
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major obstacle to increasing women’s representation at this level. Increasing

women’s representation for the JDP faces resistance for other reasons as well: the
central party organization, led by Erdoğan, refrains from committing to a quota
gb
e[v
re]

system, arguing that a quota is ‘an insult to women’.85 The party organization
holds enormous power in the nomination system, which is primarily left to the
discretion of the party administration. As one moves to the local level, the resis-
tance to increasing women’s representation becomes stronger. For instance,
because of both heavy gender bias and the absence of trained and experienced
women, the party has no chairwomen for city organizations.
However, the low level of female representation within the party organization
by no means suggests women’s absence or lesser involvement with the party. Thou-
sands of women are organized under a separate party structure called Women’s
Branches [Kadın Kolları, WB]. These separate organizations for women first drew
attention during the Welfare Party’s success in the 1994 local and 1995 general elec-
tions under their leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The JDP adopted the same struc-
gb
e[v
re]

ture, in which women come into direct contact with potential voters through
meetings. Specifically, the WB organizes home visits, during which they introduce
the party’s objectives, offer solutions to the problems women face and organize
charities for the poor and needy. The branches intensify their campaigns during
electoral periods: Before the 2007 national elections, for instance, the WB organized
5149 meetings in various parts of the country and met with 223,950 women in six
months.86 These women-only meetings and family visits are carried out by the
members of the WB only. With 1,200,000 members,87 the JDP’s WB is the largest
branch for women in Turkey and perhaps the main reason support for the JDP
among women is five per cent higher.88 As Fatma Şahin, head of the WB, explained:
S[ce]d
li

Women are pioneers; they have a unique power, which is the ability to
penetrate the househould. Men cannot just knock at the door and enter a

83
JDP’s webpage, available at http://www.akparti.org.tr (accessed 10 February 2007); KA-DER (The
Association for the Support and Education of Female Candidates), available at http://www.ka-
der.org.tr (accessed 11 April 2010).
84
Ibid.
85
Erdoğan further explained that adopting a quota system would mean that ‘women are weak and
gb
ev
[re]

should seek help from men … [Men] and women are entitled to equal rights in this country’. Zaman, 27
October 2008.
86
Sabah, 5 January 2007.
87
Nuriye Akman, ‘Fatma Şahin İle Söyleşi’ [Interview with Fatma Şahin], Zaman, 17 January 2010.
S[c]ed
li d
I[o
]t sc[e]d
li S[c]ed
li

88
Taha Akyol, ‘Meydanlarda Kadınlar’ [Women are in Streets], Milliyet, 5 March 2009.
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 355

home. When women do that, you reach other women, which means that
you reach the entire family. This is our power. When you change women,
you change the entire society.89

Despite this impressive record, the WB’s power within the party is severely
limited as it is connected to the central party organs in an auxiliary capacity. In
other words, the WB constitutes a parallel organization within the party, one that
is run by women and for women, and is mainly concerned with family-, women-
and child-related issues. Consequently, the WB plays the role of recreating the
traditional gender division of labour and reconstructs femininity as one centre in
women’s domesticity at the organizational level. The only member of the WB repre-
sented in the decision-making mechanisms is the head of the branches, who serves
in the Central Executive Committee (CEC) as one of the 20 members,90 and she does
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so without being able to vote.91 Although the Committee has other female members
with voting rights, the role the party envisions for the WB seems to be one that is
quite active in mobilizing other women while remaining a protégé of the main
party, dominated by men. This organizational role seems to reflect the role advo-
cated by Emine Erdoğan, the wife of Prime Minister Erdoğan, who is actively
gb
e[v
re] gb
[ev
re]

involved with the WB and often appears at meetings acting like a de facto leader.
She is a woman who is educated and well respected by her husband and children
at home, but plays a secondary role in the public life by staying behind her man.
This auxiliary role envisioned for the WB by the central administration is not
always welcomed by the branches. For instance, the current leadership under
Fatma Şahin was explicitly criticized by her own party for not nominating female
candidates.92 Under Şahin’s leadership, the WB recently organized a number of
workshops to tackle women’s issues, including gender-based violence, women’s
employment, gender equity and the media.93 These workshops involved experts,
academics and civil society organizations from different political spectra.94 At the
end of the workshops, the WB prepared a comprehensive report, the ‘Gender
Equity Report’. Ironically, the report seemed to disagree with some of the party
positions on gender, including its recommendation to eliminate discrimination
based on sexual orientation,95 the distinction between customary and honour kill-
ings and the need to collaborate between the Directorate of Religious Affairs
[Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı] and feminist civil society organizations.96
gvb[e]r

The WB also organized special programmes to train women as local politicians

through classes on such topics as democratization, the relationship between the

89
Akman, op. cit.
90
The central decision mechanism has other female members, not associated with the WBs, with full
voting rights. For instance, the remaining 19 members of the Committee consist of two female and
17 male members. The female Head of WB is not represented in the Central Decision-Making and
Administrative Committee (CDAC), which has a total of 51 members (14 female and 37 male), all of
whom have the right to vote. http://www.akparti.org.tr (accessed 16 August 20100).
91
See the JDP Code, Article 86, available at http://www.akparti.org.tr/akim/tuzuk.asp?diz-
in=102&hangisi=1 (accessed 11 August 2010).
92
Hürriyet, 2 August 2004.
93
Zaman, 20 January 2010.
94
Sibel Eraslan, ‘Tayyip Erdoğan’ın Kadın Emekçileri’ [Tayyip Erdoğan’s Female Workers] Vaktim,
5 March 2010.
95
This is an interesting point because the previous Head of the WB, Selma Kavaf, called homosexuality
a disease.
96
Sabah, 8 March 2010.
 356 G. Çavdar

media and politics, and political identity.97 Shortly before the 2009 local elections,
for instance, the WB trained 2600 women in Ankara, who in turn trained other
women. Although local elections failed to meet the goal of 15 per cent of women
politicians at municipalities,98 still 723 women out of 1650 were elected to munici-
pal bodies.99 Şahin explained the resistance by arguing that ‘there exists a zero-
sum game between women and men over political positions; for every new
woman a man loses and men do cooperate with each other to retain those
positions for themselves’.100
However, the extent, if any, to which these gains will translate into better distri-
bution of power between the men and women within the party organization
remains in question, as the gains of the WB are not institutionally possible to
channel to the central party organization. In fact, despite the WB’s efforts and
what was promised by the central administration, the 2007 general elections and
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the 2009 local elections did not result in a significant increase in the number of
female representation.101 Demands of the WB are, therefore, arbitrarily met and
solutions seem ad hoc, random and easily reversible.

Concluding Remarks
Conceivably, social movements do reflect the ideology, preferences and values
that their constituencies hold. In a social and political setting, like the one in
Turkey, where achieving gender equity does not rank as a high priority for any
political party, a socially conservative right-wing movement should not be
expected to be a cheerleader of gender equity. It would be, therefore, unfair to
hold the JDP to standards that no other party has had to meet. While this
argument undoubtedly has some merits, the important point is that social
movements do not simply reflect their support base. Their policies are not
constructed and revised on a regular basis as a result of surveys. Rather, these
movements are also transformative in the sense that, at times, they lead and
shape the views of their constituencies rather than simply following them. After
all, the JDP’s pro-neoliberal and pro-EU policies are not always welcome among
the JDP’s constituency. Why would the JDP be willing to ignore the views of its
constituency on some issues, but reflect the conservatism of its traditional base
when it comes to gender?102
Unsatisfied with arguments that are based on Islam, this essay has attempted to
answer this question by examining historical, strategic and institutional factors.
Historically, at the centre of the Islamist movements’ identity is promotion of
traditional familial and societal roles for women and implementation of strict
control over women. Even after Islamist groups transform their ideologies, as in
the case of the JDP, as global neoliberal economic policies become less doctrinaire
97
Hürriyet, 27 December 2008.
98
Hürriyet, 13 December 2008.
99
AK Parti Kadın Kolları Haberler [News from the JDP’s WB], 5 May 2009, available at http://kadinkol-
lari.akparti.org.tr/turkce/haber.asp?id=622 (accessed February 2010).
100
Akman, op. cit.
101
Zaman, 2 March 2009.
102
According to research conducted by Hakan Yılmaz, the most widespread form of conservatism in
Turkey is religious conservatism. However, conservatism in the area of sexuality and male–female equal-
ity is by no means unique to the religious constituency. See Hakan Yılmaz, ‘Conservatism in Turkey’,
Turkish Studies Quarterly, 7:1 (2008), p. 62, available at http://hakanyilmaz.info/yahoo_site_admin/as-
sets/docs/HakanYilmaz-2008-ConservatismInTurkey-TPQ.28465311.pdf (accessed September 2).
 Islamist Moderation and the Resilience of Gender 357

and more pragmatic this aspect continues to constitute the core of the groups’
identity, which they are not willing to give up easily. Strategically, since the JDP
also appeals to religious conservatives and relies on their support, these groups
also have a strong interest in portraying themselves as conservative on gender
issues and as protective of family values. The JDP appeals to a broad constituency
with differing ideological leanings, including nationalists, liberals, conservatives
and Islamists. Gender, it seems, is a strong tie between the JDP and its conserva-
tive base. Institutionally, gender bias is recreated regularly through a patriarchal
party structure that places men on top and women at the bottom. These factors
combined seem to ensure that the resistance of gender to change and transforma-
tion is likely to continue. A point of emphasis, however, is that this resistance is
not inevitable. Like other examples in which such seemingly resistant formations
were successfully altered, women’s activism could challenge these structures
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through opportunities they create for themselves.

A highly dynamic and diverse social movement, Islamism has gone through
identifiable transformations in recent decades. Mostly shaped by their national
contexts, Islamist groups present vast variation while at the same time sharing
some similarities. A resistance to compromise on the politics of gender seems to
be a point of concurrence among these groups. Further study is needed, however,
to identify the similarities between Islamism and other faith-based movements
concerning this resistance, as conceivably Islamism is no exception.

Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Annual Convention of Interna-
tional Studies Association, 3 March 2007, Chicago, IL, and the Annual Meeting of
Southwestern Political Science Association, 10 April 2009, Denver, CO. The field
work that the research was based on was supported through the Faculty Develop-
ment Fund of the Liberal Arts College at Colorado State University (CSU), 2007. I
would like to thank Yavuz Yaşar, Pınar Ilkkaracan, Nesrin Semiz, Luciana
sc[ed
]li

Storelli-Castro, the editor, Naveed Sheikh, and three anonymous reviewers of the
journal for providing me with provoking questions and invaluable comments and
suggestions.