The Politics of Secularism

Religion, Diversity, and Institutional Change in France and Turkey

Murat Akan

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9780231543804
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Discussions of modernity—or alternative and multiple modernities—often hinge on the question of secularism, especially how it travels outside its original European context. Too often, attempts to answer this question either imagine a universal model derived from the history of Western Europe, which neglects the experience of much of the world, or emphasize a local, non-European context that limits the potential for comparison. In The Politics of Secularism, Murat Akan reframes the question of secularism, exploring its presence both outside and inside Europe and offering a rich empirical account of how it moves across borders and through time.

Akan uses France and Turkey to analyze political actors' comparative discussions of secularism, struggles for power, and historical contextual constraints at potential moments of institutional change. France and Turkey are critical sites of secularism: France exemplifies European political modernity, and Turkey has long been the model of secularism in a Muslim-majority country. Akan analyzes prominent debates in both countries on topics such as the visibility of the headscarf and other religious symbols, religion courses in the public school curriculum, and state salaries for clerics and imams. Akan lays out the institutional struggles between three distinct political currents—anti-clericalism, liberalism, and what he terms state-civil religionism—detailing the nuances of how political movements articulate the boundary between the secular and the religious. Disputing the prevalent idea that diversity is a new challenge to secularism and focusing on comparison itself as part of the politics of secularism, this book makes a major contribution to understanding secular politics and its limits.

Index

Page numbers refer to the print edition but are hyperlinked to the appropriate location in the e-book.

Abant platform, 230, 319n63

Açanal, Necdet, 171

Acomb, Evelyn Martha, 31, 70

Action libérale populaire (ALP, France), 53, 57; and 1905 separation law, 58, 59, 62–73, 95

Adıvar, Halide Edib, 141, 308n17

Administrative Justice Act (Turkey), 225

AKP. See Justice and Development Party

Aksoy, Muammer, 179–80, 185, 194

Aldıkaçtı, Orhan, 202, 204

Alevi Bektaşi Federation, 228

“Alevi-Bektaşi Question,” 24, 229–30

Alevilik, 183, 223, 237; defining, 229, 231–36; Erdoğan on, 223, 225, 274; religious institutions of, 223

Alevis: about, 291n37, 311n75; and AKP, 212, 222–223, 225, 226; assimilationist policies toward, 236, 239; and CHP, 183, 211–12, 216; constitution nondiscrimination clause on, 182, 183; demands of, 183, 223; discrimination against, 169; and DRA, 183, 211–12, 223, 230, 232, 235, 236, 241, 320n80; in Germany, 25; history of, 235, 236, 320n80, 320n87; massacres of, 227–28, 236, 237, 238, 252–53, 318n51; mass demonstration by, 229; and Sunni mosque-building projects, 200, 223, 234, 319nn72–74

Alevi Workshops, 222–25; Alevilik definition discussed at, 231–36; on Alevi question as societal issue, 229–30; on history and memory, 227–28, 237–39; laiklik as main issue of debate in, 223, 232, 236–37; organizing of, 225–26; procedures in, 228–29

Algeria, 35–36, 52, 294–95n2

Allard, Maurice, 93

Alliance of Civilizations meeting (2006), 2, 209, 216

All Teachers Union and Solidarity Association (TÖB-DER), 255

Alpaslan, Tevfik Fikret, 202

alternative modernities approach, 1, 3, 17, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Statement
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• I. Traveling Through Analytical and Hermeneutical Approaches
• II. Accounting for Institutional Outcomes and Trajectories: Political Ends, Ideas, and Institutions
• III. The Institutional Politics of Laïcité in the French Third Republic
• IV. The Politics of Laïcité Positive and Diversity in Contemporary France
• V. The Institutional Politics of Laiklik in Kemalist Turkey
• VI. The Sincere Government (Samimi Hükümet), the Institutional Politics of Religion, and Diversity in Contemporary Turkey
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Series List