Menderes Çınar is Professor of Political Science at Başkent University, Ankara. His research interests include Turkish Politics and Comparative Islamism.
£ to 1928, though not in their entirety)—recovers the life of a bourgeois family in = Istanbul bo... more £ to 1928, though not in their entirety)—recovers the life of a bourgeois family in = Istanbul both before and during World War I. * Taken together, the chapters are based on diverse and original documen2 tation. Relying on a large spectrum of sources from contemporary literature p to travelogues, from dictionaries to the daily press, from diaries to memoirs, £ Georgeon's scholarship is inspiring for social historians, almost all of whom 5 are admittedly indebted to his pioneering studies. The fact that some of the s subjects on which he wrote in the late 1990s and in the 2000s were taken up z by younger scholars and turned into dissertations and monographs in the last few years—as apparent from the first footnotes of many of the chapters—is the most explicit evidence for Georgeon's role in expanding the horizons of Ottoman studies. Moreover, the book is impressive in terms of its literary merit and the strength of its narrative. One of the most significant methodological problems for social historians, which Georgeon raises at the very beginning, is to be able to imagine historical realities and epochs that are not only different from, but also diametrically opposed to our own. In other words, it is a tough task for modern-day historians, who are basically parts and products of an age of the nation-state, to understand a time when individuals and collectivities lived in a plural world. Yet, Georgeon's creative use of language and apparent literary talent enables the reader to enter essentially different historical settings and observe from within these other lives and social experiences. Given the difficulty in accessing some of these crucial articles, largely due to the ever-developing supremacy of English as an academic language over French or German, the appearance of this voluminous collection of essays is very good news for historians of the late Ottoman Empire.
Abstract Recent democratic performance of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma P... more Abstract Recent democratic performance of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) indicates the dissolution of its original liberal ambiguity in ways that hinder the possibilities of a full-fledged democracy in Turkey. This study finds the explanation in the perpetuation of a specifically Turkish paradigm of democracy/democratization, which has emerged in the early years of the Turkish experiment with democracy and has been reproduced by the Turkish political class ever since. In doing so, the article draws attention to the predominance of a defective conceptualization of democracy, which, while emphasizing the elected government's supremacy over the tutelary state elite, fails to come to terms with the inevitability of political disagreement and the normative imperative of seeking consensus for a positive-sum politics.
This chapter focuses on the emergence and development of Turkish Islamism since the transition to... more This chapter focuses on the emergence and development of Turkish Islamism since the transition to competitive politics in 1946 after a brief review of Islamism and secularism in the late Ottoman and early republican periods. It studies the history of Turkish Islamism in three stages: its crystallization into a distinct political party organization within right-wing milieus between 1946 and 1980; its expansion, pluralization and rise in a favorably changing domestic and international context between 1980 and 1998; and, after a setback, its hegemonic renewal at the expense of democracy and authoritarian rule by a populist leader between 1998 to the present. Thematically, the chapter addresses its durability, changing ideological characteristics, social basis, political strategies, and ideological alliances. It identifies several factors shaping the fortunes and characteristics of Turkish Islamism including its relatively secular nature and integration into the political processes, favorable modification of the parameters of state secularism in Turkey, economic transformations, and global intelletual and political trends revealing the defects of Turkish democracy and secularism.
The Politics of Islamism: Diverging Visions and Trajectories, 2018
Revisiting some of the main tenets of the moderation theory, Çınar suggests three possible factor... more Revisiting some of the main tenets of the moderation theory, Çınar suggests three possible factors accounting for the Turkish AKP’s decay from a potentially “Muslim democrat” political force, embracing the universal principles of rule of law, human rights and pluralism, to a “populist authoritarian” political force. The latter redefines democracy in nativist terms to dismiss democratic opposition, centralize and concentrate power in its hands, and deploy the Islamic moralist language of “forbidding evil, commanding good” to legitimize its “instructive” policies. The three factors include strong leadership and internal party structure, the political context within which the AKP interacted with secular actors and the impact of the shifting international context on the revival of the AKP’s Islamist ideology.
This paper reviews the evolution of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)’s civilizational outlook... more This paper reviews the evolution of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)’s civilizational outlook vis-à-vis the West as a discursive instrument that justified its Muslim democracy practices as well as its nativist authoritarian practices. The former practice entails that the AKP appear as a Muslim democratic political force, reconciling Islam and democracy, falsifying the Orientalist essentialism prevalent in the West and resolving the crisis in Turkey’s Western identity. After relieving the secular establishment of its guardianship roles in 2010/2011, the AKP’s nativist practices have aimed at redefining Turkey as a Muslim nation by using a civilizational discourse. As such, the AKP’s nativism was characterized by an attempt at resetting the legitimate parameters of Turkish politics to reject the validity of the universal norms of democracy and the legitimacy of their domestic and international proponents. This naturally entailed a populist anti-establishment stance in foreign as well as domestic policy realms.
£ to 1928, though not in their entirety)—recovers the life of a bourgeois family in = Istanbul bo... more £ to 1928, though not in their entirety)—recovers the life of a bourgeois family in = Istanbul both before and during World War I. * Taken together, the chapters are based on diverse and original documen2 tation. Relying on a large spectrum of sources from contemporary literature p to travelogues, from dictionaries to the daily press, from diaries to memoirs, £ Georgeon's scholarship is inspiring for social historians, almost all of whom 5 are admittedly indebted to his pioneering studies. The fact that some of the s subjects on which he wrote in the late 1990s and in the 2000s were taken up z by younger scholars and turned into dissertations and monographs in the last few years—as apparent from the first footnotes of many of the chapters—is the most explicit evidence for Georgeon's role in expanding the horizons of Ottoman studies. Moreover, the book is impressive in terms of its literary merit and the strength of its narrative. One of the most significant methodological problems for social historians, which Georgeon raises at the very beginning, is to be able to imagine historical realities and epochs that are not only different from, but also diametrically opposed to our own. In other words, it is a tough task for modern-day historians, who are basically parts and products of an age of the nation-state, to understand a time when individuals and collectivities lived in a plural world. Yet, Georgeon's creative use of language and apparent literary talent enables the reader to enter essentially different historical settings and observe from within these other lives and social experiences. Given the difficulty in accessing some of these crucial articles, largely due to the ever-developing supremacy of English as an academic language over French or German, the appearance of this voluminous collection of essays is very good news for historians of the late Ottoman Empire.
Abstract Recent democratic performance of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma P... more Abstract Recent democratic performance of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) indicates the dissolution of its original liberal ambiguity in ways that hinder the possibilities of a full-fledged democracy in Turkey. This study finds the explanation in the perpetuation of a specifically Turkish paradigm of democracy/democratization, which has emerged in the early years of the Turkish experiment with democracy and has been reproduced by the Turkish political class ever since. In doing so, the article draws attention to the predominance of a defective conceptualization of democracy, which, while emphasizing the elected government's supremacy over the tutelary state elite, fails to come to terms with the inevitability of political disagreement and the normative imperative of seeking consensus for a positive-sum politics.
This chapter focuses on the emergence and development of Turkish Islamism since the transition to... more This chapter focuses on the emergence and development of Turkish Islamism since the transition to competitive politics in 1946 after a brief review of Islamism and secularism in the late Ottoman and early republican periods. It studies the history of Turkish Islamism in three stages: its crystallization into a distinct political party organization within right-wing milieus between 1946 and 1980; its expansion, pluralization and rise in a favorably changing domestic and international context between 1980 and 1998; and, after a setback, its hegemonic renewal at the expense of democracy and authoritarian rule by a populist leader between 1998 to the present. Thematically, the chapter addresses its durability, changing ideological characteristics, social basis, political strategies, and ideological alliances. It identifies several factors shaping the fortunes and characteristics of Turkish Islamism including its relatively secular nature and integration into the political processes, favorable modification of the parameters of state secularism in Turkey, economic transformations, and global intelletual and political trends revealing the defects of Turkish democracy and secularism.
The Politics of Islamism: Diverging Visions and Trajectories, 2018
Revisiting some of the main tenets of the moderation theory, Çınar suggests three possible factor... more Revisiting some of the main tenets of the moderation theory, Çınar suggests three possible factors accounting for the Turkish AKP’s decay from a potentially “Muslim democrat” political force, embracing the universal principles of rule of law, human rights and pluralism, to a “populist authoritarian” political force. The latter redefines democracy in nativist terms to dismiss democratic opposition, centralize and concentrate power in its hands, and deploy the Islamic moralist language of “forbidding evil, commanding good” to legitimize its “instructive” policies. The three factors include strong leadership and internal party structure, the political context within which the AKP interacted with secular actors and the impact of the shifting international context on the revival of the AKP’s Islamist ideology.
This paper reviews the evolution of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)’s civilizational outlook... more This paper reviews the evolution of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)’s civilizational outlook vis-à-vis the West as a discursive instrument that justified its Muslim democracy practices as well as its nativist authoritarian practices. The former practice entails that the AKP appear as a Muslim democratic political force, reconciling Islam and democracy, falsifying the Orientalist essentialism prevalent in the West and resolving the crisis in Turkey’s Western identity. After relieving the secular establishment of its guardianship roles in 2010/2011, the AKP’s nativist practices have aimed at redefining Turkey as a Muslim nation by using a civilizational discourse. As such, the AKP’s nativism was characterized by an attempt at resetting the legitimate parameters of Turkish politics to reject the validity of the universal norms of democracy and the legitimacy of their domestic and international proponents. This naturally entailed a populist anti-establishment stance in foreign as well as domestic policy realms.
Uploads
Papers by Menderes Cinar