Kemalist Ideology in modern Turkey : is the secularist state in a process of change?

Abstract

The last 15 years, a new political party appeared in Turkish political field: The Justice and Development Party, which was founded by former Political Islam supporters. Its officials claimed that they are moderate and they don’t want to undermine secularism but to correct it, by creating a state where both the pious and the less pious and even the atheists can coexist. In other words, they just wanted to stop the repression of the more conservative and pious part of the society. Their policies follow that direction but, at the same time, AKP politicians state that Islamization of the society, which is contrary to what Kemal Ataturk wanted for Turkey, isn’t a part of their agenda. Nevertheless, the secular part of the society feel threatened by AKP policies and accuse them that they want to make Turkey an Islamic state, where the society would be Islamic. Is it so? The goal of this current research is to try to give an answer to this question. Does Recep Tayip Erdogan, Turkey’s powerful man, have an Islamization agenda? Is the Turkish society changing towards an Islamic one? In order to answer to this question, first, in the first chapter of this dissertation, how the Ottoman Empire transformed into a secular state is explained. In the latter parts, how Political Islam appeared and the political events that followed and gave rise to the Justice and Development Party are analyzed. In the last part, the focus is on Erdogan, Turkey’s current President, and Justice and Development Party’s policies regarding the religion.By assessing these topics, an answer will be given about secularism, if it withdraws and if AKP and Erdogan attempt to Islamize the society in general.