Islam and Democracy in Turkey

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Islam and Democracy in Turkey
Bnnaz Toprak a
a
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bo aziçi University,
Istanbul, Turkey
Online Publication Date: 01 June 2005

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Islam and Democracy in Turkey

BİNNAZ TOPRAK
]dIo[t
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Boǧaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey
]dIo[t
20BinnazToprak
toprak@boun.edu.tr
00000June
Turkish
10.1080/14683840500119494
FTUR111932.sgm
1468-3849
Original
Taylor
62005 and
& 2005 Group
Studies
Article
Francis
Print/1743-9663
Francis Ltd Ltd online
ABSTRACT This essay discusses the relationship between Islam, politics and democracy in
the Turkish context. Its main theme is that although, in the author’s view, liberal democracy is
incompatible with a Muslim state that bases its legitimacy on Islamic law, a Muslim-majority
country can have a democratic system of government provided law is secularized, prohibiting
discrimination on the bases of gender and faith. Turkey, by secularizing its legal system in the
early years of the Republic, opened the way for the advent of democracy. While its brand of
radical secularism was contested by Islamist groups, the fact that the tug-of-war between the
secularist and the Islamist strata in society was played out within a democratic system, based
on compromise and moderate politics, differentiated the trajectory of the Islamist movement
in Turkey from others in the Muslim world.
The question of whether Islam is compatible with democratic forms of government

has increasingly been a major issue of discussion among Western academic and polit-
ical circles. Why Islam is singled out as a special case when the general literature on
modernization hardly takes notice of religion in non-Muslim contexts is, in itself,
worthy of inquiry. Explaining the emergence of both capitalism and democracy in
terms of cultural rather than structural prerequisites has a long scholarly history.
However, it was Samuel Huntington’s controversial argument about the cultural
divide between the West and the Islamic world that popularized the perception that
there is incompatibility between democratic values and belief in Islam.1
This dominant perception in the West has been challenged in a recent study
published in 2003, based on a survey research that covered 80 percent of the world’s
population. According to its results, although there are discernable differences
between some values held by Islamic and Western publics, notably on the question
of gender relations, attitudes towards core political values, especially the desirability
of representative democracy, in fact converge.2
This essay uses the Turkish example to argue that whatever the reasons for the
apparent lack of democracy in most Muslim-majority countries, the causes are not
due to public resistance to democratic forms of government. The Turkish experience
demonstrates that secularization of law in Islamic societies is an important prerequi-
site of democracy. However, the recent history of Turkey also points to the
contested nature of secularization, which leads to polarization and hence creates
Correspondence Address: Binnaz Toprak, Department of Political Science and International Relations,
Boǧaziçi University, 34342 Bebek, Istanbul, Turkey. Email: toprak@boun.edu.tr
]dIo[t
ISSN 1468-3849 Print/1743-9663 Online/05/020167-20 © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/14683840500119494
168 B. Toprak
tension between democracy and secularism that can threaten both. It is the central
thesis of this essay that the division along the religious versus secular axis can only
be resolved through the internal logic and mechanisms of democratic rule.
Liberal Democracy and the Islamic State

Whether Islam is compatible with democracy is a legitimate question to ask about
Islamic states where the legal system is based on the shari’a. Islam envisions a
political order which is founded on its fundamental principles about community life
and moral behavior. Such a conception blurs the distinction between politics, law
and theology as well as between the public versus the private spheres.3 A system
where there is community control over individual lives, backed by the legislative
authority of the Islamic state, seems especially ill-equipped for the emergence of
liberal democracy. Moreover, neither the status of women nor the status of the
non-Muslims under Islamic law allows, under an Islamic state, the exercise of full
democratic rights and equal participation by all citizens.
However, the history of the Christian world before it secularized shows that
Christianity too, although its theology distinguished between political and reli-
gious authority, was equally problematic for the emergence of democracy in its
support of absolute rule in politics and patriarchy in social life. The historical
struggle for democracy in the West went parallel with the struggle for a secular
worldview, and in the case of some countries, such as France, with the struggle
against organized religion. The democratic ideal, the notion that people, or citi-
zens, mattered, emerged against the teachings of the church, which for long had
supported absolute power through a quasi-religious philosophy of the “Divine
Right of Kings.”4 The recognition of individual rights and of the idea that govern-
ments exist by consent of the people found its initial voice in the writings of
“contract” theorists such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, who based their argu-
ments for equality and freedom on rights derived from natural law rather than on a
conception of a compassionate God in whose eyes human beings, as he created
them, were equal and free. The secularization process in the West, too, led to
bitter conflict and remains a divisive political issue in many Western countries
over such questions as abortion rights, school prayers, head covering in state
institutions and the like.
Secularization, then, seems to be important for the establishment of a democracy,
although it is obviously not a sufficient factor. Secularization refers to the divorce of
public affairs, including law and education, from religion. This is the classic defini-
tion of the separation of church and state. The separation between private morality
and religion should be included in this definition. This seems to be important in any
context, but especially in Muslim contexts. The struggle between secularists and
Islamists throughout the Muslim world is most crucially over the question of who
should define the boundaries of moral behavior. The issue here is whether defini-
tions of both public and private morality should be left to the umma (the community
of believers) and the legislative mechanisms of the Islamic state, or whether it
Islam and Democracy in Turkey 169
should be the individual who may embrace religious definitions of morality but is
free to choose secular ethics.
Liberal democracy is about choice, not only political choice over who should
rule, but also life choices, i.e., the freedom to shape one’s life within the boundaries
of law that gives equal rights and opportunities to each individual. This conception
of liberal democracy is not a possible conception under an Islamic state. The
concept of freedom has to include issues related to one’s private life—such as how
one dresses, chooses marriage partners regardless of religious affiliation, lives one’s
sexuality, decides whether to drink alcohol, or determines whether to practice reli-
gion—without being subject to state persecution. Yet, each of these issues has been
considered to be under the jurisdiction of the state in countries ruled by Islamic
law.5
The struggle over morality, at bottom, is over gender relations and especially
about women’s visibility in the public sphere. Indeed, women are at the center of the
Islamist project. The Islamist images of Sodom and Gomorrah are the metropolises
of the modern world. From miniskirts to bikinis to nightclubs to “promiscuity” in
sexual relations, issues of morality cloud the imagery of Islamist writing. The objec-
tion to modernity is neither to the economic forms of modern life, nor to new
technologies, nor even to financial institutions, as Islamic banks get around interest
rates through novel forms of “profit and risk sharing,” but rather, to the new gender
relations that modernity brought. Take out the issue of gender from the Islamist
project, little would remain that might be incompatible with “a modern way of life”
as opposed to “an Islamic way of life.” The covering of women and/or their segrega-
tion in the public sphere are at the center of this project. It is for this reason that
women are especially in peril under Islamic states whose instruments of repression
are mostly used against women, as the recent histories of Iran and Afghanistan have
shown. The gender issue should be recognized as the “fault line” of Islamic states if
modern liberal democracy is to be understood as something more than a vote at the
polls.
The Turkish Model: Secularization as a Precondition of Democracy

As the history of republican Turkey demonstrates, however, a Muslim nation can
establish, sustain and begin to consolidate a democratic form of government and a
liberal conception of public life as long as its state distinguishes between religion
and the public sphere. Turkey stands out among Muslim-majority nations as the
only country that has sustained democracy since 1946, although Turkish democracy
has its own “fault lines.” Its unique position in the Muslim world is due to the
groundwork that had been accomplished earlier through a series of secular reforms
during the early years of the Republic.
The radical program of reform and Westernization that the republican cadres
pursued in the 1920s and the 1930s had earlier started within the Ottoman Empire in
the mid-nineteenth century. Through legal and institutional change, the Republic’s
founders established secular systems of law and education; destroyed the influence
170 B. Toprak
and power of the ulema (learned men of religion) within the state administration;
banned the unorthodox Sufi orders; put orthodox Islam under state control; and
outlawed the use of religious speech, propaganda or organization for political
purposes. The most radical goal of the republican project of modernity targeted
women: the shari’a was abolished, polygamy banned, a new civil code enacted that
gave women equal rights, and women were given equal opportunities of education
and employment. Thus, as early as the 1930s, Turkey stood as an anomaly among
Muslim countries, with large numbers of women in hitherto male occupations, as
judges, lawyers, academicians and doctors, who had few equivalents, if any, at that
time, even in the West.6
These reforms were carried out under authoritarian auspices and were originally
welcomed only by a small elite. The radical secularism of the Republic was from the
top down, imposed on the population by a one-party regime. Although a number of
rebellions in the early 1920s and 1930s by Islamist groups challenged the Repub-
lic’s understanding of the role religion would henceforth play in public affairs, these
were suppressed within a relatively short period as the regime consolidated its
power. It was the “Islamic threat,” as republican cadres perceived it, which aborted
two half-hearted attempts, in 1924 and 1930, to introduce democracy. When,
finally, the decision was made in 1946 to institute democratic elections, the issue of
secularism partially determined the outcome of the elections in 1950 when the
Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) of the opposition won under an election
system that was designed to keep the incumbent in power.
The consequences of the Republic’s program of secularization, in accordance
with the French laique, or Jacobin model, were twofold. The first was to produce
important groups who were thoroughly committed to the concept of a republic
founded on Enlightenment ideas of reason and progress and who considered the
public display of religiosity as an attack on the secular republic. These included the
intellectuals, the educated public, the bureaucracy, professional groups, the business
community, the mainstream press, the judiciary and, most importantly, the army.
Although their numbers were initially small, in time the secular reforms of the
Republic came to be accepted by the majority of the Turkish population.
For example, 79 percent of the respondents in a survey conducted in 1999 thought
that the reforms of the early republican period had led to progress in Turkey. Indeed,
the findings showed that although 97 percent of the population declared themselves
to be Muslims, this figure by itself confirmed neither the hope of the Islamists nor the
fear of the secularists that an Islamic state would therefore be supported. When asked
whether they would want a state based on the shari’a, 21.2 percent of the respondents
answered in the affirmative, a figure consistent with previous surveys. However, only
around 10 percent were willing to accept the replacement of secular law with the
Islamic on questions of marriage, divorce and inheritance rights. Especially striking
were responses on a question about the penal code, with only 1.4 percent who favored
punishment for adultery “according to the Koran.”7
The results also showed that although 97 percent of the population considered
themselves to be Muslims, some of the respondents were cynical about the relevance
of Islam’s teaching as interpreted by theologians. For example, while atheists were

only 2.6 percent of the population, 23 percent claimed that what was written in the
Koran was less convincing as a result of scientific progress, with an additional 8.6
percent who were not sure. Similarly, 34.8 percent thought that Islam should be rein-
terpreted to accommodate modernity, 8.7 percent were undecided on this issue, and
6.7 percent said they did not know.8
The first consequence of republican secularism, then, was to produce important
groups who were committed to minimizing the role of Islam in public life. The
second consequence was to produce groups who stood in contrast to the former,
who had been marginalized by the Republic and pushed out of the centers of politi-
cal power, social status and intellectual prestige, because of their opposition to
republican reforms and/or their provincial/religious backgrounds. This division
of the Turkish population into “secularist” versus “Islamist” camps led to serious
political polarization after 1980 as the urban poor joined the ranks of the Islamists.
The Lesson of Democracy: Moderate Politics

The democratization of the political system also led to two consequences in terms
of this struggle between the secularists and the Islamists. The first was to give
Islamist groups organizational space that, on the one hand, led to the politicization
of Islam and, on the other, to the liberalization of the political system as successive
governments after 1950 had to take into account the religious sensibilities of the
voter. The second consequence was to force the Islamist camp into moderate poli-
tics as Islamist parties, in turn, had to take into account the secular sensibilities of
the voter.
In 1946, when the system opened up for competitive politics, of the 24 parties
founded, eight had Islamic themes in their programs.9 By 1950 only one, the Nation
Party (Millet Partisi, MP), was able to gain enough support to enter the elections
from which it emerged with a single seat in the Grand National Assembly. The
Islamist vote went to center-right parties that had a clear economic program
combined with cultural policies that were designed to appease the Islamists. It was
not until the 1970s that an explicitly religious party was able to make any headway
in elections. By then, however, the message had become clear that no party that only
promised to play the “Islamic card” could win elections unless it had a sound
program for answering the everyday needs of the electorate.
The National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi, MSP) under Necmettin
Erbakan’s leadership was relatively successful at the polls in the 1970s,10 and was
able to enter successive coalition governments with both the left and the right
precisely because it had learned the lesson of democracy—that the voter cares more
about economics than about religious issues. The MSP’s program at the time was
one of rapid industrialization. While the party appealed to the Anatolian entrepre-
neurs who had hitherto found it difficult to receive state favors because of their
provincial/religious backgrounds, it appealed to the poor in its promises of cutting
down inflation and providing social welfare.
172 B. Toprak
The Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP) of the 1980s and 1990s, again under
Erbakan’s leadership, benefited from this lesson further as the party undertook a seri-
ous effort at grassroots organization in the slums of the big cities and distributed
welfare assistance to the poor, a move that originally led to success in the municipal
elections of 1994 when Welfare Party candidates for mayor won in 28 municipali-
ties, including the two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara. The party strategies then
]dIo[t
carried the Welfare Party to power in a coalition government after the 1995 elections,
from which the party emerged with the highest percentage of votes and Erbakan
became the prime minister in 1996.
The story of what happened to the party and to its leader, Erbakan, discloses the
dynamics and limits of political action in democracies as well as the problems of
democratic consolidation in Turkey. The details of this account escaped the atten-
tion of outside observers, such as political analysts within the European Union, the
majority of whom believed that Erbakan’s fall from power was the result of military
pressure and hence demonstrated the weakness of Turkish democracy. Although, as
discussed below, the military had an important role in this process, attributing the
decline of political Islam in Turkey solely to the role of the military seriously over-
looks and minimizes the internal logic of democratic politics.
For those who could observe the political situation from within the country, it was
clear that the Erbakan government led to a political crisis that divided the country
along the secularist–Islamist axis. Those who followed the news and televised
debates were made aware of a civilian opposition to the Welfare Party, which
started with its success in the municipal elections and reached a peak few months
after it came to power. Several examples could be given to demonstrate this civilian
opposition: thousands of office secretaries faxing each other after Welfare’s munici-
pal victory in Istanbul to urge the reporting of any harassment that uncovered
women might encounter in public places; the protests against the Welfare Party
mayor in the sub-municipality of the Beyoğlu district in Istanbul who ordered the
g[bevre] ]dIo[t
restaurants to remove their outdoor tables, apparently because liquor was served;
issuing of statements by business organizations, labor unions, NGOs, professional
organizations and academicians calling for Erbakan’s resignation; the chanting of
slogans that Turkey will not be “another Iran” by thousands in stadiums before
concerts and soccer games; mass celebrations of the Republic Day; the populariza-
tion of a military march composed for the tenth anniversary of the Republic; the
popularization of the figure of Atatürk, as the public, once cynical about the
predominance of his portrait/statues in government offices, public squares and
schools, took to wearing pins and necklaces with his picture, circulating bumper
stickers with slogans indicating commitment to his principles, and decorating walls
with posters bearing his portrait.
It was in this atmosphere of civilian protest against Welfare that the municipality
of a small town in Anatolia under a Welfare mayor staged a play that depicted the
Palestinian intifada with the stage decorated with posters of Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah
and Hamas leaders. The performance of angry Islamist youth throwing stones at the
enemy, repeatedly shown on national television channels, seemed to many as both
distant and yet symbolically close to home, reminding the viewers of Erbakan’s
earlier statement that if need be his party would come to power through bloodshed.
This was the beginning of the end for the Welfare Party and for Erbakan’s political
career. The military issued a declaration that came to be known as “the February 28
Decisions,” demanding that the government take measures against the rising tide of
political Islam. A few months later, Welfare’s coalition partner, the True Path Party
(Doğru Yol, DYP), threatened to quit unless Erbakan gave up his position as prime
g]evb[r
minister to DYP’s leader, Tansu Çiller. Erbakan resigned and the President gave the
opposition Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP) the task to form a govern-
ment, on the pretext that ANAP’s votes in the elections were higher than DYP’s,
although not its seats in the Grand National Assembly. The Constitutional Court
outlawed the party a year later and Erbakan was banned from political activity.
Welfare leaders had learned the early lesson of democracy—that a party has to
promise tangible benefits to the voter in order to win elections. However, they had
no experience in governing and found themselves in the precarious position of
balancing the interests and sensibilities of a diverse and polarized electorate. Most
importantly, they failed to comprehend the boundaries and constraints of political
action in a relatively open, democratic system.
On the one hand, the Welfare Party leadership must have known that their politi-
cal survival depended on moderate politics, especially given the fact that they had
come to power with only 21.4 percent of the vote. This they learned quickly as
Erbakan repeatedly had to take decisions that were contrary to the party program.
For example, the party propaganda before the elections promised the reversal of
Turkey’s entry into the European Customs Union as well as the annulment of the
military treaties signed with Israel. Once in power, however, Erbakan announced
that his party would go along with the Customs Union and the treaties with Israel
since, as he put it, state decisions had “continuity.” In fact, he even signed a second
treaty with Israel.
On the other hand, however, the party leadership found it difficult to follow
moderate politics, given the fact that the party’s survival also depended on the
continued allegiance of its supporters, the loyalties of whom the party had secured
through their radicalization. Squeezed between exigencies of attempting to become
a “catch-all party” of the center-right versus the expectations of its radicalized
followers, the party leadership found it expedient to abide by the rules of the secular
Republic in its policies, on the one hand, and to “play to the tribunes,” as the media
called it, by using a radical discourse to its followers, on the other.
Erbakan, for example, signed a decree that expelled a large number of officers
from the army because of suspected connections with the Islamists. Although this
was a decision by the army that was by no means novel and had plenty of prece-
dents, the Islamists had a longstanding objection to such expulsions on grounds of
discrimination within the army against “devout Muslims.” The Erbakan government
also passed the law, after the February 28 Decisions, which increased compulsory
education from five to eight years. The law targeted, besides other aims, the İ mam-
]dI[ot
Hatip Liseleri, which were originally established as vocational schools to train

174 B. Toprak
prayer leaders and preachers, the graduates of which could only enter higher institu-
tions of theology. In time, however, under pressure from Islamist groups, their
curriculum was expanded and graduates were allowed to enter any faculty of their
choice. By the 1990s, their numbers had reached 640. Although they were theoreti-
cally supervised by the Ministry of Education, surveys showed that the education
students received at these schools had resulted in more radical attitudes towards the
secular state than those of the rank-and-file Welfare supporters. Since the new law
required an additional three years of education in primary schools, its acceptance
resulted in the closure of the junior high sections of imam-hatip schools. Both of
these decisions were extremely unpopular with Welfare’s following.
To strike a balance, Erbakan attempted to appease his followers by declaring defi-
ance against secularist sensibilities. For example, he announced that under his
administration, university rectors would “kiss the hands” of the female students with
headscarves who are forbidden by law to enter the universities unless they uncov-
ered. This statement was followed by a second, that promised the building of a
mosque in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. That was followed by yet a third declaration
]dIo[t
that the Haghia Sophia Museum in Istanbul, originally built as a church by the
] dIo[t
Byzantine Empire, used as a mosque by the Ottomans, and turned into a museum by
the Republic, would now serve as a mosque again. All three issues became symbols
of the tug-of-war between the Islamists and the secularists. The first of these, the
headscarf issue, had long been a source of political conflict. It had become the most
controversial issue of the 1980s and the 1990s, leading to organized protests
at university entrances.11 The other two were less important but nevertheless
symbolically significant for both sides. This precarious position of the Welfare Party
leadership could appease neither side.
Turkey went through important changes in the 1980s as a new economic program
of export-oriented growth and the free market was accepted to replace import substi-
tution policies. One of the most important consequences of this change for politics
was the unprecedented development of systems of communication and information
flow. Private television and radio stations began to broadcast clandestinely from
neighboring countries, although the 1982 Constitution allowed only state-owned
media channels. When the government decided to crack down on them, the decision
met with millions of protestors who took to the streets, honking their automobile horns,
demanding “their” television and radio channels back on the air, a movement of protest
that finally led to a change in the constitution. New automatic telephone lines were
installed, which connected Turkish towns and villages with each other as well as with
the outside world, supplemented by the amazingly widespread use of mobile phones.
The computer and the internet entered homes, and for those who could not afford
them, internet cafes were established. The number of people traveling abroad and the
number of students studying abroad increased significantly. These changes, as
expected, led to the liberalization of the political system although, paradoxically,
under the most restrictive legislation since the transition to democracy in 1946.
Following these improvements in communication channels, it was increasingly
difficult for governments to hide information from the public or to censure it.
Television debates that brought controversial issues to the public view became the
most popular programs, continuing until the early hours of the morning and
watched by millions of people. Even military coups seemed a distant possibility in
a country where public opinion could not be controlled. For example, a television
parody at the time portrayed a number of generals trying to stage a coup, each
announcing the military takeover of the government, only to find out that other
channels were announcing several other coups by different generals. Indeed, it was
for this reason that the February 28, 1997 intervention of the military against the
Welfare Party government was called “a post-modern coup,” since direct takeover
by the military was seen as a remote possibility when the state had no monopoly
over information flow.
It was this milieu of relative liberalization of the political system that brought
Welfare to power. On the one hand, an Islamist party was allowed to come to power,
despite the Republic’s long history of suppressing the Islamist opposition, as result
of a more liberal understanding of democracy and a more open system of informa-
tion flow that the state could not control. On the other hand, however, this meant
that the party was under the scrutiny of the public eye.
Constantly under the eye of television cameras, the party’s national leaders found
it increasingly difficult both to control the provincial leadership cadres and to avoid
making mistakes themselves. Each time the leadership denied something said, such
as Erbakan’s statement that his party would come to power through bloodshed if
need be, television channels would repeatedly show the person making the state-
ment that he claimed was not his. The cameras were everywhere, recording the ritu-
als of outlawed tarikats (religious brotherhoods); the meetings organized by
provincial Welfare mayors asking Allah “to implant the love of shari’a into the
heart of the President” or asking the crowd “to hold on to this hatred, this malice in
their hearts;” the calls for an Islamic state by Welfare Party local leaders during the
hajj in Mecca; the iftar (breaking of the fast during Ramadan) receptions of Prime
Minister Erbakan to tarikat sheiks; his state visit to Khaddafi and the humiliation he
experienced when his host criticized Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy; and
even the misconduct of a religious sheik who apparently used his authority over his
female followers to have sexual relations with them.
This scrutiny was especially directed at understanding the “real” as opposed to
the “hidden” intentions of the Welfare Party leadership. The discussions centered
around whether it would abide by democratic procedures or whether the leadership
was engaged in “takiyye,” the right of Muslims to hide their true beliefs in hostile
milieus.
On this point, too, the leadership was unable to convince its critics of its commit-
ment to democracy. Whenever Erbakan or other leaders discussed the question of
democratization in Turkey, it became increasingly clear that what they understood
from liberal democracy was greater freedom to the Islamists, a sectarian understand-
ing that was solely confined to issues of concern for the party’s following, such as the
ban on headscarves for female university students. Otherwise, the party leadership
seemed undisturbed by more important violations of rights.
176 B. Toprak
For example, the Welfare Party voted with the majority to lift the political immu-
nity of the representatives of the Democracy Party (Demokrasi Partisi, DEP, estab-
lished as a pro-Kurdish party) in the Grand National Assembly under allegations
that the DEP supported the separatist organization, PKK. This led to the closing of
the DEP and the imprisonment of its members of parliament, although the Welfare
Party leaders had repeatedly criticized the closure of Islamist political parties in the
past on grounds that this was unacceptable in democracies.
At the time when Turkey was on the blacklist of international human rights orga-
nizations for cases of widespread torture, Prime Minister Erbakan turned down
Amnesty International’s request for an appointment, arguing that Amnesty was a
“Euro-centric” organization. His minister of justice did nothing to prevent the death
of scores of political prisoners as a result of hunger strikes to protest prison conditions.
However, the party’s most telling blunder was Erbakan’s response to the
“Susurluk scandal.” This involved a car accident near the small town of Susurluk
that disclosed the dead bodies of a mafia leader and a chief of police. Inside the
car was also a member of parliament from Welfare’s coalition partner, DYP, who
was wounded. This incident suggested to the public the existence of illicit opera-
tions between the security forces, political parties and organized crime. An imme-
diate public reaction followed, demanding government investigation into the
matter. However, when it became clear that the government was unwilling to take
action on rumors of corruption, and spontaneous protest broke out, taking the form
of blinking lights for a minute every night at a set time in thousands of homes and
cars, Erbakan had the audacity to appear on television and mock the protesters’
method of protest. Although this protest was not originally directed at the Welfare
Party, the campaign intensified from then on and turned against the Welfare
government itself, in time called by the leaders of the armed forces “a coup by the
civil forces.”
Welfare’s kind of sectarian politics and ideological tone led to the revival of the
polarization that had almost resulted in a civil war in the 1970s. The country’s
extreme fragmentation along the left–right axis at that time was now along the
Islamist–secularist axis. Both cases had invited military interventions as democracy
gave way to a direct coup in 1980, and was seriously weakened by the behind-the-
scenes maneuvering in 1997. However, even if the military had not intervened, it
was unlikely that Erbakan could complete his term of office, given the widespread
public opposition to his government.
The survey mentioned earlier points to the political reasons for Welfare’s failure
to stay in government. The results showed that an overwhelming majority of the
Turkish people (91.5 percent) found tolerance of differences of faith and belief to be
important for social peace. A number of questions testing this statement revealed that
tolerance indeed existed. For example, when asked whether believers in Allah and
the Prophet would nevertheless be considered to be Muslims even if they did not
perform the namaz nor fast during Ramadan, 85.6 and 82.0 percent of the respon-
dents, respectively, answered in the affirmative. A surprising 53.1 percent said that
there might be good people among the atheists. Although 59.0 percent thought that
every Muslim woman should wear a headscarf, 85.0 per cent were nevertheless will-
ing to accept uncovered women as Muslims if they were believers.12
The results also showed that the majority of the Turkish electorate did not
approve of the politicization of religion. For example, 60.6 percent said that they did
not want religious political parties, and those who did remained at 24.6 percent,
equal approximately to the Welfare Party’s vote. Although 76.7 percent said that
female students could cover their heads if they chose to, only 46.0 percent thought
that Welfare’s support on this issue was correct policy. On the question of the
Constitutional Court’s decision to close the Welfare Party, while 36.9 percent
endorsed it, 38.7 percent objected to it.13
The answers to the last question above point out the extent to which the Welfare
Party had divided the electorate. There was much public discussion at the time about
the dilemma of choosing between democracy and secularism—as many came to
believe that no democracy could survive without defending its fundamental princi-
ples. Hence, sizable numbers came to accept the paradoxical position of curtailing
democracy in order to preserve it. Indeed, the intervention of the military in politics
was being openly voiced as an inevitable result of politicizing Islam.
The Welfare leadership failed to show the political acumen to engage in concilia-
tory politics that could have led to the normalizing of relations between the secular
and Islamist groups in Turkish society. Here was an Islamist party in power in a
country with a long tradition of militant laicism where powerful groups kept a vigil
over the secular state. The Welfare Party had come to power in a political milieu of
intolerance to even rational demands when these were voiced by the Islamists, such
as the suggestion initiated by Welfare’s predecessor MSP that required a liquor
license for selling beer. This had been interpreted as a major assault on the secular
state and had filled the columns of newspapers for weeks. When the unthinkable
happened and an Islamist party came to power, the Welfare Party leadership acted
as if they had lapsed into memory loss in regards to the Republic’s history. Even
after February 28, 1997, when it became clear that the generals and the judiciary
would no longer tolerate political Islam, Tayyip Erdoğan, then the mayor of Istanbul
g[bevre] ]dIo[t
from the Welfare Party, would recite a poem during a political rally likening
mosques to barracks, minarets to bayonets, and the faithful Muslims to an army,
leading to his subsequent imprisonment on grounds that he had attempted to incite
the population to violence.
This legacy of polarized politics left Welfare’s successor, the Virtue Party
(Fazilet Partisi, FP), with little chance to survive. Although it tried to distinguish
itself from the Welfare Party and denied any continuity between the two, it was
unable to convince the judiciary that the very same people who had been active
within the Welfare Party and now formed the political cadres of the Virtue Party
had changed, especially after the latter attempted a showdown in the Grand
National Assembly when one of its female MPs tried unsuccessfully to take the
oath of office with a head cover. Hence, the Virtue Party shared the fate of both
its predecessors, MSP and the Welfare Party, and was closed down by the Consti-
tutional Court. The movement then split into two parties, the Felicity Party
178 B. Toprak
(Saadet Partisi, SP) and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma
Partisi, AKP).
The Felicity Party was placed in the hands of the old leadership loyal to Erbakan
and seems to have no political future after an embarrassing defeat in the elections of
2002 with a meager 2.4 percent of the votes. AKP, on the other hand, was founded
by the reformist young generation within the Welfare Party, who committed the
party in its 2002 program to the consolidation of liberal democracy in Turkey. Led
by the dynamic ex-mayor of Istanbul, Tayyip Erdoğan, it won the 2002 elections
]dIo[t geb[vre]
with 34.2 percent of the votes and was able to form a single-party government after
several decades of rule by coalitions. Thus, the legacy of the Welfare Party has been
the elimination from electoral politics of the old guard, what the public has come to
know as the “traditionalists,” and their replacement by a young generation of
“reformists” who seem to have studied the Welfare Party’s saga well and have
drawn lessons from it. Most importantly, the AKP of Erdoğan seems to have caught
geb[vre]
the connection between the Welfare Party’s failure to show enough political acumen
to pursue consensual politics and its ultimate decline.
Political Islamism and the Role of the Military

The analysis in the preceding pages has concentrated on the role of democracy in
moderating political Islamism. It has left out the role of the military in this process,
which was unquestionably significant. However, the military’s apparent role has
generally overshadowed the importance of the democratic process itself in the trans-
formation of political Islamism in Turkey after 1997 that this essay has picked up as
a central theme.
The leading role of the military in the modernization process during the later
years of the Ottoman Empire and the first few decades of republican Turkey proved,
in the long run, problematic for Turkish democracy. After staging two full coups in
1960 and 1980, and two half-coups in 1971 and 1997, the military became a major
player in Turkish politics. Its interference in politics is feared, resented or welcomed
by different groups, depending on whose interests are at stake and the circumstances
under which the military decides to play an active role. Since the 1990s, the military
has played a behind-the scenes role, well aware of the difficulties of direct rule in a
country that has become socially, politically and economically complex. The mili-
tary presence, however, serves as a real or fabricated excuse for civilian forces that
are against democratic consolidation in Turkey. Thus, issues such as correcting
Turkey’s democratic record in order to meet the Copenhagen criteria for member-
ship in the European Union or, indeed, the very issue of Turkey’s membership, are
brought to an impasse by various groups in the country on pretexts of military oppo-
sition to it.
Although the perceived opposition of the military was indeed the case on a
number of issues such as its resistance to the cultural rights of the Kurdish minority,
the solution of the Cyprus problem, or the recognition of a more liberal definition of
secularism, it is unclear whether the military would indeed stage yet another coup if
the political elites were to agree on such a course. Opposition to the consolidation of
democracy in Turkey has often been disguised by an over-eager use of the “military
factor.” As recent developments show, the military finds it difficult to show open
resistance to civilian decisions when these are taken through legitimate democratic
procedures and rest on consensual politics. Thus, for example, the AKP govern-
ment’s determination to solve the Cyprus issue, or to recognize some of the cultural
rights of the Kurdish minority, or even to curb the political influence of the generals
has been quietly accepted by the army.
In its self-appointed role as the “guardian” of the unitary, secular state, the military
occupies the paradoxical position of “safeguarding” democracy while at the same
time posing a major challenge to further democratization. It has a better record than
most military governments in the developing world, who do not tend to relinquish
power once they get hold of it. The Turkish military, in contrast, has left the stage to
democratically elected governments after the 1960 and 1980 coups within relatively
short periods of time. However, its withdrawal from power has always been on
condition that it keeps its role as the guardian of the Turkish state. It has been a major
force in pushing political Islam to moderate its goals but it has also been a center of
resistance to the expansion of rights and liberties.
The professionalism of the Turkish military, backed by a hierarchical chain of
command, has been an effective mechanism to isolate it from infiltration by Islamist
groups. It recruits its cadres from among the lower-middle classes who aspire to
social mobility through a military career. It is from among these classes that political
Islam also finds its major support. Although education and training in military acad-
emies are geared to inculcate its mission of loyalty to Kemalist principles, especially
secularism, the social origins of its cadets leave them open to influence by anti-
system movements. The command structure of the military has prevented this, as
large numbers of cadets are periodically expelled from the military under suspicion
of their involvement with Islamist groups.
However, as paradoxical as it seems, it was the military after the 1980 coup that
helped strengthen political Islamism. The coup aimed to stop the bloody struggle
between the left and the right that, prior to the coup, claimed on average 20 lives a
day in street fighting. Electorally weak extremist groups on both sides had come to
dominate politics with their youth or paramilitary organizations. Using the logic of
Cold War politics at the time, the leaders of the coup blamed the communist threat
for the street fighting and attempted to thwart it by playing the Islamic card. The
so-called “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis,” originally theorized by intellectuals and
statesmen of the right, became the quasi-official ideology of the military regime.
Based on a typical fascist tripod of “barracks, mosque, and family,” the Turkish-
Islamic synthesis was geared to bring the rebellious youth back into the folds of the
establishment through emphasizing obedience to authority and fear of God.14 It was
thus no coincidence that Alparslan Türkeş , the leader of the far-right Nationalist
]csel[di
Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), declared while in prison after the
1980 coup that although the leadership of his party was in jail, its ideas were in
power.
180 B. Toprak
Political Islamism never embraced this new ideology of half-religious, half-military

nationalism. It did nevertheless benefit from policies that provided a tabula rasa for
Islamist organization. Later, when the military came to realize that social movements
are not like troops that stop marching when ordered to halt, it was too late as the system
by then had opened up to democratic politics. It was not until the February 28 decisions
in 1997 that the military would once again find a rationale to intervene in the
democratic process.
Islamist Politics and Problems of Late Economic Development

Social unrest that stems from problems of late economic development and its rela-
tionship to the rise of political Islamism also strengthened the military’s role in
politics. The two decades between 1960 and 1980 had led the country to a near civil
war between the leftists and the rightists over questions of distribution. This strug-
gle ended with the 1980 coup that stopped not only the bloodshed but also the
potential opposition to the change of economic policy from import-substitution to
the free market model. State withdrawal of subsidies and the freezing of wages and
salaries under an economy beset with high inflation increased the gap between the
rich and the poor. This had two consequences: it enlarged the social base of the
Islamist movement, and it led to Marxist-oriented guerilla warfare in the Kurdish
populated southeastern region of the country. Thus, Turkey’s geopolitical position
of being surrounded by “hostile” neighbors, as the military saw it, was supple-
mented by the emergence of domestic “hostile” movements. This provided the
military with the rationale to be singularly responsible for playing the role of the
“guarantor” of the unitary, secular state.
One of the reasons for the vulnerability of democracy in less developed settings,
which invites military involvement in politics, is the insufficiency of governmental
budgets to provide social welfare and services, thus further increasing the unequal
distribution of wealth. Both the Islamist and the Kurdish problems in Turkey have
less to do with questions of identity than with questions of the redistribution of
wealth in a developing capitalist economy. It is not coincidental that the bulk of the
supporters of political Islam are the less-well-to-do, and that what was originally a
separatist movement emerged in the least developed region of the country. This is
not to suggest that all who are involved in the Islamist or Kurdish movements are
poor, or that questions of identity are not at stake. Rather, the argument here is that
civilian governments that are unable to meet economic demands face anti-system
movements, whether of the left, the right, the Islamists, or the Kurds, which sooner
or later become radicalized and thus invite military intervention. Since military
coups secure law and order by repressing the underprivileged groups involved in
protest movements, the process leads to a vicious circle of eliminating one move-
ment only to be faced by a new one.
The rise of political Islam in Turkey in the two decades after the 1980 coup is
related to this cycle. The socio-economic conditions that led the Welfare Party to
power had much to do with the decline of the left after 1980. Whereas the vote of
the urban poor largely went to the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk
Partisi, CHP) in the 1970s, it was transferred to the Welfare Party in the 1980s and
the 1990s. The Welfare Party’s populist but catchy “Just Order” program and its
tactics of electoral campaign were successful in both mobilizing the poor and in
providing opportunities of upward social mobility to some of its followers. Without
question, the Welfare Party was the most organized of all the political parties, with
an army of devout Muslims, especially women, who did volunteer work for the
cause.15 This “army” provided a network of social welfare help to the poor. The
party’s grassroots organization was extremely effective, working in the squatter
sites and poor neighborhoods of metropolises, helping residents to find jobs, arrang-
ing hospital beds for the sick, distributing free food and fuel, taking care of funerals,
visiting poor patients in hospitals, and attending weddings.16
At the same time, the Welfare Party offered its supporters a wide range of possi-
bilities for upward social mobility through an “Islamist” network of job recom-
mendations, credits, capital and contracts. The party supporters were employed in
municipal governments and the state bureaucracy. Some municipal and govern-
mental contracts went to the entrepreneurs among its ranks. Through domestic and
international Muslim capital, the Welfare Party created its own bourgeoisie,
including its own intelligentsia and media, within a relatively short period of time.
The network helped people in free professions such as lawyers and doctors, or
small businesses such as local supermarkets and clothing stores, by providing them
with a clientele. Thus groups, who had been hitherto marginalized by the secularist
elite, were now integrated into the system as they gained political power, social
status and intellectual prestige.17
Following February 28, 1997, however, Islamist capital came under scrutiny and
a number of Islamist companies ran into trouble for charges of corruption in a coun-
try where corruption has been rampant in accumulating wealth and where revealed
cases often escaped official investigation. This selective crackdown on corrupt prac-
tices of Islamist companies, coupled with citizen calls to boycott the products of
Islamist firms, was designed to cut off the financial sources of the movement. To
what extent the Islamist groups were economically hurt by the process remains
unexamined.
Political Islam Discovers Democracy’s Virtues

A brief examination of the changes in the outlook and program of Islamist parties
since the 1970s shows the road they have traveled in terms of coming to accept
liberal democracy and Turkey’s aspirations to integrate with Europe.
In the 1970s, the MSP formulated its ideology as “Milli Görüş,” which translates
[sc]edli
as the “National Outlook.” The term came to be used as the name of the movement
to differentiate it from what MSP leaders called the “Western Club.” For the leader-
ship, included in this “club” were all the other parties on both the left and the right
that were extensions of their Western counterparts and had no vision for the solution
of problems indigenous to Turkey.
182 B. Toprak
The party’s slogan, “A Great Turkey Once Again—Yeniden Büyük Türkiye,”

captured its leadership’s aspirations of building “native” industry on Anatolian capi-
tal, thus replacing the economic power of the center with a new group of provincial
entrepreneurs that Erbakan would later call “the Anatolian tigers.” This would be
accompanied by a cultural program to return to tradition that would carry the periph-
ery, the social groups that republican secularism had marginalized, into the center of
political power and social prestige.
Thus, MSP’s proposed solution to Turkey’s problems was to return to Islam’s
teachings and live “the Muslim way of life.” Industrialization, accompanied by such
cultural change, would create a strong nation that would turn its back on the West
and become the leader of the Muslim world. In this context, a United Muslim
Nations, a Muslim Defense Alliance and a Muslim Common Market would be
created with the Islamic Dinar as its common currency. This was the meaning of its
slogan, “Great Turkey Once Again.”18 Although the party seemed to accept the
workings of a democratic system, a program of consolidating democracy was not on
its agenda.
The military coup in 1980 ended the life of the MSP. The coup was not directed
against the Islamists but rather against the increased violence between the left and
the right. Hence, MSP was not singled out but shared the fate of all political parties
in Turkey. When the system opened up again to competitive politics three years
later, the Milli Görüş movement reorganized itself under the banner of the Welfare
]cs[eldi
Party.
The Welfare Party’s ideology differed little from the MSP’s. Its view of modern
Turkish history, its condemnation of what it considered to be the corrupt values and
lifestyle of the “Westernized” Turks, its understanding of the role of Islam in
Turkish society, and its outlook on foreign policy were similar.19 To these views, the
Welfare Party now added a new vision of changing the secular legal structure of
Turkey to a system that would be based on what it called “different law for different
religious communities.” The rationale for this was found in an ancient document
that Prophet Muhammad had drafted in Medina.20 Similar to the millet system of the
Ottomans, the Welfare Party’s proposal called for the autonomy of each religious
group to practice its own law. Unlike a multi-religious empire, in a country that has
religious homogeneity, this in effect would mean that those who called themselves
Muslims would be subject to the shari’a.
Its economic program of “Just Order” was nothing more than a populist fiction
that displayed the party’s extremely simplistic view of how a modern economy
works, although the slogan itself had great appeal to the poor.21 This economic
model was supplemented by a leftist discourse of capitalist exploitation, without
using a Marxist vocabulary, combined with anti-Zionist proclamations that verged
on anti-Semitism.22
This conspiracy theory was reinforced by the party’s foreign policy, similar to the
MSP’s of substituting Turkey’s connections with the UN, NATO and the European
Union by their Islamic counterparts to be established under the Welfare Party’s
leadership. Once in power, Erbakan claimed that he would found the M8 (the “M”
standing for Muslim) as an alternative to the D7 and began touring the capitals of
Muslim-majority countries, a project that he later dropped after his humiliating visit
to Khaddafi.23
The Virtue Party’s program differed significantly from Welfare’s in several

respects. It abandoned the latter’s “Just Order” economic program. It also aban-
doned its views on foreign policy, of isolating Turkey from the West. The party
program supported Turkey’s entry into the European Union and its role within
NATO. The Welfare Party’s proposal for a new legal system was similarly rejected.
The program at the same time called for the expansion of basic rights and liberties
and promised to amend the constitution and other laws that restricted freedoms.24
The Felicity Party’s program, drafted by the old guard within the cadres of the
Welfare and Virtue parties and written in a much more sophisticated political
language, further elaborates these themes of democratic rights and liberties and
voices support for Turkey’s entry into the European Union.25
It is AKP’s program, however, that is most impressive in terms of the theory of
democracy behind it. It stands as a document that reveals the change that the Milli
Görüş movement underwent. The program has a long section on human rights and
]cs[eldi
commits the party to put into effect the international charters that Turkey has signed,
specifically citing a number of them including, for example, the Paris and Helsinki
agreements. It has a section on women’s empowerment that again commits the party
to abide by the provisions of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination Against Women. It has a paragraph that defines secularism as a prin-
ciple that protects both the right to religious belief and practice and the right of non-
believers to organize their life according to an ethics of their choice. It defines
multiculturalism as a source of wealth for a nation and emphasizes the protection
and extension of ethnic and linguistic rights. In foreign policy, the program states
that the party’s priority is Turkey’s entry into the European Union. The program
also states that the AKP’s aim is to become a centrist party that will appeal to all
sectors of the electorate.26
Since 2002 when the party came to power, the AKP leadership has indeed put
into effect some of these promises. For example, the AKP government played a
major role in the decision of the European Union in December 2004 to start acces-
sion negotiations with Turkey; several articles of the 1982 Constitution were
amended to extend basic rights and freedoms; Turkey’s human rights record has
improved by the government’s declaration of “zero tolerance” for torture; amend-
ments of the Criminal Code have given further protections to women against
violence; capital punishment under any circumstances has been outlawed; some of
the cultural rights of the Kurdish minority have been recognized; and the military’s
involvement in politics has been considerably curbed.
Conclusion
This essay has tried to analyze the role democracy has played in shaping political Islam
in Turkey. As the Welfare Party example demonstrates, a democratic environment
184 B. Toprak
provides a platform for the organization of anti-system parties while it forces them to
limit their sphere of action and to moderate their ideology. In that context, Welfare’s
story is similar to the history of communist parties in Western Europe that had to give
up their rigid interpretation of Marxism and calls for the dictatorship of the proletariat
as they lost votes. This interplay of freedom of action and its limits in a democracy
has served as a lesson to Islamist parties in Turkey. It is the ensuing transformation
of political Islam and its inclusion in the political center that distinguishes the Turkish
case from examples of Islamist parties elsewhere.
The AKP’s performance in power thus far shows no indication that the party will
revert to its Islamist origins. In fact, the leadership defines the party’s identity as
conservative democrat and is extremely careful to avoid controversy over issues of
secularism. As mentioned above, the party leaders have been actively pursuing
Turkey’s application for accession into the European Union and have initiated a
number of constitutional and legal changes designed to extend civil liberties, recog-
nize minority rights and curtail the power of the military in politics in order to meet
the standards set forth in the EU’s Copenhagen criteria. At the same time, the AKP
has shied away from following populist politics and has abided by the terms of the
IMF agreements, the result of which has been gradual recovery from the worst
economic crisis of the republican period that erupted in 2001. In general, the AKP
seems sensitive to consensual politics and Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership style avoids
g[bevre]
the kind of polarization and tug-of-war between adversaries that was so characteristic
of political leaders in the past.
It is a paradoxical twist of history that it is the AKP of Tayyip Erdoğan, given its geb[vre]
roots in Islamist politics of confrontation, which came up with a new understanding

of political life which pays attention to the special attributes of modern democracies,
namely, discussion, bargaining and compromise.
Notes
1. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Vol.75, No.6 (1993), pp.28–34.
2. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, “Islamic Culture and Democracy: Testing the ‘Clash of Civiliza-
tions’ Thesis,” in Ronald Inglehart (ed.), Human Values and Social Change: Findings from the
Values Surveys (Leiden and London: E. J. Brill, 2003), pp.5–34.
3. Donald Smith, a pioneer in analyzing the relationship between religion and political development,
classifies Islam as an “organic religion” as opposed to “church religions.” Whereas in the latter there
is an autonomous structure that distinguishes the “church” from the state, in the former there is no
such organization, at least in theory, that has a separate identity from the rest of society. See his Reli-
gion and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970). On the question of the structural
merging between Islam, society and politics, see E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval
Islam (London: Cambridge University Press, 1958); W. Montgomery Ward, Islamic Political
Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1968); Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern
History (New York: New American Library, 1957); H. A. R. Gibb, Mohammedanism (London:
Oxford University Press, 1962); T. W. Arnold and A. Guillaume (eds.), The Legacy of Islam
(London: Oxford University Press, 1931); and Fazlur Rahman, Islam (New York: Doubleday, 1968).
4. On the early origins of secular thought in European history, see the brilliant essay by Ernst Cassirer,
“The Triumph of Machiavellism and Its Consequences,” in his The Myth of the State (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1946), pp.129–55.
5. For example, in Egypt, which is not an Islamic state but uses an amended version of the shari’a in
family law, the ulema of El Ezhar opened a law suit against a Muslim couple against the latter’s
wishes, on the grounds that the husband, who had written a thesis on a novel interpretation of the
Koran and was thus “excommunicated” by the El Ezhar ulema, was no longer a Muslim and hence
could not remain married to a Muslim woman. Other examples of state interference in individuals’
private lives and choices include compulsory covering of women; state violence against women
who refuse to cover; the ban on liquor; the ban on medication for sexual arousal and death
sentences for those who do not comply; or death sentences by recm for adultery and extramarital
sex. Examples of states that have used some or all of these measures include Iran, Afghanistan
under the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Nigeria, and the Aceh province in Indonesia (which is
ruled by Islamic Law).
6. For a discussion of these reforms and the changes Turkey underwent in the early years of the
republic, see the classic works by Niyazi Berkeş, The Development of Secularism in Turkey
(Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964); and Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey
(London: Oxford University Press, 1965). It should be pointed out here, however, that successive
governments have not matched this early record on women’s emancipation after Turkey’s transi-
tion to democracy in 1946. At present, the status of Turkish women in international statistics
reveals how much the issue has been neglected since then. For comparisons of gender development
and gender empowerment in Turkey with other countries, see the indexes in UNDP, Human Devel-
opment Report, 2003.
7. Ali Çarkoğlu and Binnaz Toprak, Türkiye’de Din, Toplum ve Siyaset [Religion, Society and Politics
geb[vre]
in Turkey] (Istanbul: TESEV Yayınları, 2000).

8. Ibid.
9. Tarık Zafer Tunaya, İ slamcılık Cereyanı [The Islamist Movement] (Istanbul: Baha Matbaası, 1962),
]dI[ot ]dIo[t
pp.190–2.
10. It received 11.8% and 8.6% of the votes in the 1973 and 1977 elections, respectively.
11. On the history of this controversy, see Elisabeth Özdalga, The Veiling Issue, Official Secularism and
Popular Islam in Modern Turkey (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998).
12. Çarkoğlu and Toprak (2000).
g[bevre]
13. Ibid.
14. See Binnaz Toprak, “Religion as State Ideology in a Secular Setting: The Turkish-Islamic Synthesis,”
in Malcolm Wagstaff (ed.), Aspects of Religion in Secular Turkey, University of Durham Occasional
Paper Series No.40 (1990), pp.10–15.
15. A number of interesting studies have been published on how the Refah Party was able to integrate
covered women into modern life. These were women who had never been involved in political
activity or had any prior visibility in the public sphere. For a pioneering study, see Yeşim Arat, sc[]edli
“Feminizm ve İslam: Kadın ve Aile Dergisinin Düşün dürdükleri,” in Şirin Tekeli (ed.), Kadın
] dIo[t sc[]edli S[]celdi
Bakış Açısından 1980’ler Türkiye’sinde Kadın [Women in 1980s Turkey from a Feminist Perspec-
]cs[eldi
tive] (Istanbul: letişim Yayınları, 1991), pp.89–101. Also see Nilüfer Göle, Modern Mahrem:
] dIo[t sc[]edli
Medeniyet ve Örtünme [The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling] (Ann Arbor, MI: Univer-
sity of Michigan Press, 1996), and “The Gendered Nature of the Public Sphere,” Public Culture,
Vol.10, No.1 (Fall 1997), pp.61–81. On detailed information about Refah Party’s “Women’s
Commissions,” see Yeşim Arat, Political Islam in Turkey and Women’s Organizations (Istanbul:
sc[]edli ] dIo[t
TESEV Yayınları, 1999).

16. For an excellent study of Refah Party’s grassroots activities, see Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobiliza-
tion in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle, WA, and London: University of Washington
Press, 2002).
17. On a group of Islamist intellectuals who gained prominence at this time, see Michael Meeker, “The
New Muslim Intellectuals in the Republic of Turkey,” in Richard Tapper (ed.), Islam in Modern
Turkey: Religion, Politics and Literature in a Secular State (London: I. B. Tauris, 1991), pp.121–42;
Binnaz Toprak, “Islamist Intellectuals: Revolt against Industry and Technology,” in M. Heper,
A. Öncü and H. Kramer (eds.), Turkey and the West: Changing Political and Cultural Identities
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1993), pp.237–57.
186 B. Toprak
18. On MSP’s program and views, see Necmettin Erbakan, Milli Görüş [The National Outlook] (Istanbul: ]cs[eldi ]dIo[t
Dergah Yayınları, 1975); Necmettin Erbakan, Üç Konferans [Three Lectures] (Istanbul: Fetih
Yayınevi, 1974); Milli Selamet Partisi, Milli Selamet Partisi 9 Aralık 1973 Mahalli Seçimler Beyan-
namesi [The December 9, 1973 Election Declaration of the National Salvation Party]; Milli Selamet
Partisi, Milli Selamet Partisi Mahalli Seçimlerle İ lgili Olarak Adaylara ve Teşkilata Muhtıra [The ]dI[ot ]cs[eldi
National Salvation Party Recommendations to Candidates and Party Organizations concerning the
Local Elections]. For academic writing on the MSP, see Jacob M. Landau, “The National Salvation
Party in Turkey,” Asian and African Studies, Vol.11 (1976), pp.1–57; Binnaz Toprak, “Politicization
of Islam in a Secular State: The National Salvation Party in Turkey,” in Said Arjomand (ed.), From
Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam (London: Macmillan, 1984), pp.119–33; Binnaz Toprak, Islam
and Political Development in Turkey (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), ch.5; Türker Alkan, “The National
Salvation Party in Turkey,” in Metin Heper and Raphael Israeli (eds.), Islam and Politics in the
Modern Middle East (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1984), pp.79–102; Mehmet Ali
Ağaoğulları, L’Islam dans la vie politique de la Turquie (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi,
geb[vre] geb[vre]
1982), ch.3; and Ali Ya ş ar Sarıbay, Türkiye’de Modernleşme, Din ve Parti Politikası: MSP Örnek
s[ced]li ]cs[eldi
Olayı [Modernization, Religion and Party Politics in Turkey: The Case of the MSP] (Istanbul: Alan ]dIo[t
Yayıncılık, 1985).
19. For Refah’s ideology, see the party programs and election declarations: Refah Partisi Programı [The
Program of the Welfare Party] (Ankara: 1983); Refah Partisi, Refah Partisi Büyük Kongresi: Genel
Başkan Ahmet Tekdal’ın Açış Konuşması, 30 Haziran 1985 [The Congress of the Welfare Party:
]cs[eldi ]cs[eldi ]cs[eldi
Party Leader Ahmet Tekdal’s Opening Speech, June 30, 1985] (Ankara: Elif Matbaası, 1985); Refah
Partisi Seçim Beyannamesi: 20 Ekim 1991 Genel Seçim [Welfare Party’s Election Declaration: Octo-
ber 20, 1991 General Elections]; Refah Partisi, Refah Partisi 24 Aralık 1995 Seçimleri Seçim Beyan-
namesi [Welfare Party’s Election Declaration: December 24, 1995 Elections]. For academic writing
on Refah, see Ziya Öniş , “The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in Turkey: The Rise of the
sc[]edli
Welfare Party in Perspective,” Third World Quarterly, Vol.18, No.4 (1997), pp.743–66; Haldun
Gülalp, “Globalization and Political Islam: The Social Bases of Turkey’s Welfare Party,” Interna-
tional Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.33 (2001), pp.433–48; Haldun Gülalp, “The Poverty of
Democracy in Turkey: The Refah Party Episode,” New Perspectives on Turkey, Vol.21 (Fall 1999),
pp.35–59; Haldun Gülalp, “Political Islam in Turkey: The Rise and Fall of the Refah Party,” Muslim
World (Jan. 1999), pp.22–41. For a study that investigates the inner dynamics of the Refah Party, see
Ru şen Çakır, Ne Şeriat Ne Demokrasi: Refah Partisini Anlamak [Neither the Shari’a nor Democ-
s[ced]li S[]celdi
racy: To Understand the Welfare Party] (Istanbul: Metis Yayınları, 1994).

20. On Refah’s proposals for a new legal system, see Ali Ya şar Sarıbay, “ İslami Popülizm ve Sivil s[ced]li ] dIo[t
Toplum Arayışı” [Islamist Populism and the Search for Civil Society], Birikim, Vol.47 (March
sc[]edli
1993), pp.14–19.
21. On Refah’s “Just Order” economic program, see Necmettin Erbakan, Adil Ekonomik Düzen [The Just
Economic Order] (Ankara: Semih Ofset Matbaacılık, 1991).
22. For these views, see Refah Partisi, Türkiye’nin Gerçek Durumu, Sebepleri: Teşhis [The Actual Situa- ]cs[eldi
tion in Turkey: Reasons and Diagnosis]; Necmettin Erbakan, Türkiye’nin Meseleleri ve Çözümleri:
Program [The Problems of Turkey and their Solutions: Program] (Ankara: Temmuz 1991).
23. On Refah’s foreign policy, see ibid.
24. See the party program and election declarations: Fazilet Partisi, Fazilet Partisi Genel Başkanı ]cs[eldi
M. Recai Kutan’ın Seçim Beyannamesi Basın Toplantısı [The Virtue Party Leader M. Recai Kutan’s
Press Conference on Party’s Election Declaration], Istanbul, March 20, 1999; Fazilet Partisi, Seçim ] dotI[
Beyannamesinde İ lkeler-Hedefler [Election Declaration: Principles and Aims], April 18, 1999;
] dI[ot
Fazilet Partisi, Günışığında Türkiye: 18 Nisan 1999 Seçim Beynanamesi [Turkey in Daylight: April
]cs[eldi g]evb[r
18, 1999 Election Declaration].

25. See the party program and election declarations: Saadet Partisi Programı 2002, BELGEnet.htm.
26. See the party program and election declarations: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi Programı 2002 [2002
Program of the Justice and Development Party], BELGEnet.htm.

Islam and Democracy in Turkey

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Islam and Democracy in Turkey

The question of whether Islam is compatible with democratic forms of government

Liberal Democracy and the Islamic State

The Turkish Model: Secularization as a Precondition of Democracy

of Islam’s teaching as interpreted by theologians. For example, while atheists were

The Lesson of Democracy: Moderate Politics

Hatip Liseleri, which were originally established as vocational schools to train

Political Islamism and the Role of the Military

Political Islamism never embraced this new ideology of half-religious, half-military

Islamist Politics and Problems of Late Economic Development

Political Islam Discovers Democracy’s Virtues

The party’s slogan, “A Great Turkey Once Again—Yeniden Büyük Türkiye,”

The Virtue Party’s program differed significantly from Welfare’s in several

roots in Islamist politics of confrontation, which came up with a new understanding

in Turkey] (Istanbul: TESEV Yayınları, 2000).

TESEV Yayınları, 1999).

racy: To Understand the Welfare Party] (Istanbul: Metis Yayınları, 1994).

18, 1999 Election Declaration].

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