본문 바로가기
  • Home

A Study on Political Islam in a Secular State, Turkey followed by the AKP’s 20-Year Ruling; focusing on policies changed by the AKP

  • Muslim-Christian Encounter
  • Abbr : MCE
  • 2022, 15(2), pp.155-198
  • DOI : 10.30532/mce.2022.15.2.155
  • Publisher : Torch Trinity Center for Islamic Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Christian Theology > Mission Theology
  • Received : August 9, 2022
  • Accepted : September 27, 2022
  • Published : September 30, 2022

Han, Ha-Eun 1

1한국외국어대학교(글로벌캠퍼스) 중앙아시아연구소

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The AKP has been in power for the last 20 years, and Turkey is currently experiencing spread of anti-government sentiment against the AKP along with economic crisis. Through elections, Turkish people gave great expectations and support to ‘the Conservative Democracy’ advocated by the AKP. However, the original AKP’s political color – the coalition of Islamism and Liberalism, has disappeared after their second term with the implementation of policies centered on Islamic values. Triggered by the anti-government protests in 2013 and the coup in 2016, moderate Islamists including the Gülen activists, turned their backs on the current government, claiming that they oppose Political Islam referred for the sake of Erdoğan himself. For the 20 years when the AKP has been in power, the phrase, ‘a coalition of Islamism and Liberalism’ has excessively spread over the country as if it were taken for granted. Today in Turkey, however, neither Islamist nor secularist can survive, but only the media, corporate organizations, and individuals who are loyal to the AKP regime can, which infers that it has become a totalitarian, authoritarian, and corrupt society. Even within the AKP, uprisings are openly being heard by politicians who oppose Erdoğan. In fact, the Islamists feel that Turkish society has a long way to realize their wishes for Islamic laws to be pursued in the public sphere as well, and the secularists also feel the same extent of frustration, while their wishes are to remove all Islamic factors from the public sphere but Turkey has been already too Islamized. It is now estimated that Turkey will no longer be trapped in the two frames of Islamism and secularism, and will prioritize liberalism over ideology.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.