ANALYZING SECULARISM MODELS: THE CASE OF TURKEY

Year 2019, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 61 - 73, 29.06.2019

Kevser Hülya Akdemir

Abstract

This paper based on the literature review discussion
on secularism models, aims to categorize Turkish model during the republican
era. Since secularism is an ambiguous term, this study first aims to draw a
structure about the meanings loaded on secularism; and then classifies
different secularism models that modern secular states practice. After making a
core categorization on that arena, this study analyses the historical
background of Republican Turkey and categorizes its secularism experience into
three terms. Turkey as a country that has gone through many changes very
quickly experienced and gave many different connotations to what secularism is.
By dividing Turkey’s history into three terms in this quest of giving meaning
to what secularity should be, this paper investigates the stages and the
theories together. While the first term is from the birth of the Turkish
Republic to 1950 that is the date of transition to a democratic multi-party system,
the second term involves the term from the 1950s to 2002 which witnessed  the conflict of conservative parties and
secular state bureaucracy with regards to the handling of secularism. This
paper lastly, looks at AK Party period and how it transformed the notion of
secularity into a passive and softer version of what it was before. The sphere
of religious freedom and the close relationship it developed with secularity in
AK Party period is also investigated and linked to Alfred Stepan’s Twin
Toleration model and Jonathan Fox’s Separist Mode of Secularism. 

Keywords

Models of Secularism, AK Party, Kemalism, Turkish Secularism

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