Sekularism och politisk islam. En analys av antagonismen mellan två diskurser i Turkiet - den kemalistiska och den islambaserade
SecularismTurkeyKemalismIslamIslamismWelfare PartyRefahJustice and Development PartyAKPRepublican People?s PartyCHPConflictIdentity conflictAntagonismDiscourseErnesto LaclauChantal MouffePolitical and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapLaw and Political Science
This paper concerns the divide between secularist and anti-secularist groups in Turkey, which is related to a greater antagonism between a Kemalist and an Islamic political discourse, dominant in Turkish politics since the 1980s. The main aim of the paper is to analyse the causes of the conflict using the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe. The second aim is to analyse the contents of each discourse and identify the main points of conflict between them. The empirical material used in the study consists exclusively of secondary sources treating the topic, and these are analysed using the theory of identity conflicts, which is part of Laclau and Mouffe's theory. It will be argued that the attempts of Kemalism to impose strict secularism by hegemonising the concepts of ?modernity? and ?Islam? led to the creation of an alternative political discourse based on political Islam. A new intellectual middle class sharing Islamic values formed in the 1980s and the Islamic discourse dissolved the Kemalist definition of ?intellectual? as ?Westernised secular?. The peripheral segments of the working and capitalist classes suffered in different ways from the economic policies pursued by the Kemalist state, and these groups also turned to the anti-statist Islamic discourse.