Cizre Umit. Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The making of the Justice and Devlopment party

Routledge, 2008. — 245 p.Umit Cizre is a Professor at Bilkent University, Ankara,Turkey. She is a former Fulbright Research Scholar in Princeton University and Jean Monnet Research Fellow in Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, Italy.Turkey is 99% Muslim, its ruling party, Justice and Development Party (JDP),
comes from but denies its Islamist pedigree and has a very secular feel. However, the
deeply secular regime distrusts the JDP with regard to its ‘true’ colours. This book
tries to make sense of these paradoxical perceptions which have characterized Turkey’s
politics since the JDP came to power in 2002.
The key momentum for shaping the nature and trajectories of the ruling party of
Turkey since 2002, the JDP, has been the ‘identity’ question. The JDP’s commitment
to transform Turkey’s politics was part of its engagement to remake its own identity.
The JDP’s adoption of a conservative-democrat identity has rested on a new under-
standing of Westernization, secularism, democracy and the role and relevance of
Islam in politics.
The book’s central problem is to explain both the politics of change the JDP
initiated and sustained in the first three years in office and the politics of retreat it
has made from its reformist agenda since 2005. The book analyzes not just the cat-
alysts for its reformist agenda of the first three years but tries to explain its reversal
to an inward-looking conservative nationalist attitude. By approaching this topical
debate from the conceptual stance rather than a party-centered approach, U¨mit
Cizre identifies that the change the JDP has initiated within Turkey’s political Islam
and in Turkish politics is the product of an interactive process between many levels,
actors, forces and historical periods. The forces and actors covered include:- global forces of Islam;
- the secular establishment and its popular extensions;
- the past and present Islamic actors in political and non-political spheres;
- the changing balance of forces in the region which frame the EU and the US
policies toward the JDP.Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey is a valuable contribution to the study of globalization and ‘change’ in contemporary political Islam, the relationship between
religion and politics, and secularism and political Islam. As such, it will be of interest
to students and researchers alike in the area of Islamic politics, democratization,
European Union and political Islam, and globalization.