“Co-Radicalization”: A Scientific Lens Proposal to Understand the Social Movements in Turkey
Abstract
The term co-radicalization refers to intergroup hostilities leading to conflicts through cycles of reciprocal threat. This article explores the concept of co-radicalization in violent and non-violent terms and its potential application particularly in Turkey and broadly in the Middle East, a region characterized by ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, as well as socio-economic disparities. Drawing from the social fragmentations recently observed in Turkey, where scientific research on radicalism and co-radicalization is insufficient, the article offers several subjects of scrutiny, including (1) socio-economic co-radicalization between the native and migrant people in the fringes of the urban spaces, (2) the religious norm carriership led by the state institutions and the rise of “Deism” and atheism in response, and (3) the variety of non-violent radical expressions feeding each other, from music to satire. We conclude that the study of co- radicalization should be distinguished from the reductionist approaches to the concept, which tend to take terrorism and radicalism synonymously; the social scientific goal is to obtain a deeper understanding of the intricate dynamics behind societal divisions.
Keywords
Radicalization, Social movements, Türkiye politics, middle eastern politics, european politics
Supporting Institution
European Research Council
Project Number
785934
Thanks
The research reported in this article was supported by a grant received from the European Commission. This article was prepared in the scope of the ongoing EU-funded research for the “PRIME Youth” project funded by the European Research Council with the Agreement Number 785934 (ERC AdG, ISLAM-OPHOB-ISM: Nativism, Islamophobism and Islamism in the Age of Populism: Culturalisation and Religionisation of what is Social, Economic and Political in Europe).
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