Old Wine in a New Bottle: Navigating Religion and Politics in Turkiye

RELIGIONS, cilt.1, sa.1, ss.1-17, 2024 (AHCI)

While there is a large body of literature on different models of secularism and religion

and politics, relatively scarce attention has been devoted to the experimentation of the moderate

secularism model in authoritarian and Muslim-majority countries. This article brings a novel insight

into the literature by unpacking the complex relationship between secularism, politics, and religion in

Turkiye. The Turkish Republic was founded on the norm of authoritarian secularism that promulgates

the exclusion of religion both from the political and public spheres. After the Justice and Development

Party (JDP) came to power, Turkiye appeared to be moving toward moderate secularism through

policies, such as the liberalization of the headscarf and the expansion of non-Muslim rights. By

examining the transformed role of the Diyanet (the Presidency of Religious Affairs), Imam Hatip

schools, and the conversion of church-turned-museums into mosques, this article illustrates that

rather than moving in the direction of moderate secularism, the JDP has rather instrumentalized it

and has eventually worked toward infusing Islamic norms into the Turkish state through bureaucratic

and political initiatives. By examining and contextualizing the trajectory of secularism in Turkiye,

this study contributes to the literature on religion, authoritarianism, and secularism in general, and

ongoing debates on Turkish politics in particular.