THE MULTIVOCALITY OF TURKISH POLITICAL ISLAM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE COUNTRY’S DEMOCRATIZATION
Journal Title: The Copernicus Journal of Political Studies - Year 2017, Vol 0, Issue 1
Abstract
The last decades of the 20th century and the beginnings of the 21st century have witnessed a global resurgence of religion and an increase of its influence on politics worldwide. Therefore, political scientists have started to try to assess the influence of the religious factor on the democratization processes, both in democratizing countries and in established democracies. Several points of view have been put forward, regarding religion as a factor hindering democratization, distinguishing between democracy-friendly and democracy-hostile religions, or regarding every religious tradition as a multivocal corpus of different messages, which can be interpreted in the political field both in pro-democratic and in anti-democratic terms. This contribution adopts this latter point of view in its analysis of the influence of political Islam on Turkey’s democratization processes. Particularly, it shows that political Islam has favoured democratization processes whenever its leaders have not refused social and political pluralism, while it has obstructed such processes when its leaders were unable to emancipate themselves from religious organizations and from the bulk of their Islamist social base, which has left their commitment divided between them and democratic ideals.
Authors and Affiliations
Luca Ozzano
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP500965
- DOI 10.12775/CJPS.2017.005
- Views 52
- Downloads 0
THE MINSK AGREEMENTS OF 2015: A FORCED STEP OR A SMALL ACHIEVEMENT OF THE UKRAINIAN SIDE WITHIN THE DIPLOMATIC CONFRONTATION AROUND THE WAR IN THE DONBAS
The article describes the formats in which the “Ukrainian question” has been discussed in various forums in the last year and defines various reasons why meetings within the format of the “Normandy Quartet” was the most...
COMMUNICATION POLICY AS THE SOURCE OF CITIZENS’ TRUST
The article focuses on the national dimensions of the EU communication policy in Sweden, Finland and Denmark. The cornerstone of the EU communication policy is the dialogue with citizens about the policies and the future...
MANIFESTATIONS OF ISLAM IN TURKEY’S FOREIGN POLICY: ISLAMIC INTERNATIONALISM AND TURKISH ISLAM
The incumbent government of the Justice and Development Party (Turkish - Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) has often been accused of pursuing an Islamic agenda, particularly in its foreign policy, due to its concern show...
DEVELOPMENT VERSUS DISPLACEMENT DILEMMA IN WEST BENGAL: UNRAVELING A GANDHIAN SOLUTION
The tendency to equate economic growth with industrialization has in the recent past started a violent and bloody movement in the Indian state of West Bengal. The movement that started against forced acquisition of agric...
ANNA PACZEŚNIAK, EUROPEIZACJA POLSKICH PARTII POLITYCZNYCH, PUBLISHED BY WYDAWNICTWO NAUKOWE SCHOLAR, WARSZAWA 2014, pp. 270. (REV.)
recenzja