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The Case of the Turkish Religious Right

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The Case of the Turkish Religious Right International Journal of Business and SocialScience Vol. 4 No. 4; April 2013 Regime Opposition as a Source of Party Policy Change: The Case of the Turkish Religious Right Hakan Köni Assistant Professor of Political Science, Assistant-Chair Political Science and Public Administration, Çankırı Karatekin University Turkey Abstract The article is devoted to the examination of the role of the Turkish state elites on the change in the political line of the Turkish religious right. To do this, the article respectively analyzes the course of radicalization in the religious right, the secularist backlash it encountered, and the ensuing process of moderation to which it has been introduced. Based on an in-depth empirical analysis, it is observed that the Turkish religious right has gone through a notable process of moderation in response to successive reactions displayed by the secularist state elites. Assuming a cooperative and conciliatory attitude from the beginning, the movement has gradually abandoned its religious fundamentalist discourse and demonstrated a remarkable resolution to incorporate contemporary political norms and understandings into the core of its political agenda. Keywords: 28 February, State Elites, Secularism, Political Islam, Justice and Development Party 1. Introduction The causes of change in the political orientation of the Turkish religious right have been studied very popularly. The secularist reaction of the state elites, globalization, Europeanization and growing civil society activism are often pointed as the leading causes of the change.1This article scrutinizes the impact of the state elites among others with a detailed empirical analysis. The aspects of analysis conducted for this purpose include the examination of the radicalization of the Turkish religious right, the ensuing response by the state elites and its reception by the religious right. Turkish religious right has substantially reformulated its programmatic agenda in terms of the importance given to religious concerns. While the traditional National View (MilliGörüş) Parties had the purpose to introduce some religious norms and practices in public life, reaching to campaigns to establish an Islamic state on some occasions;2 the breakaway Justice and Development Party has appeared with a comparatively moderate party program which communicated itself in form of the promotion of contemporary political norms and institutions such as democracy, human rights and rule of law with a clear rejection of the idea of Islam as a political doctrine. The article will investigate this change vis-à-vis the pressures applied by the secularist state elites. 1ZiyaÖniş, “Globalization and Party Transformation: Turkey's Justice and Development Party in Perspective,” in Peter Burnell, (ed.), Globalizing Democracy: Party Politics in Emerging Democracies (London: Routledge, Warwick Studies on Globalization, 2006); İhsanDağı, “The Justice and Development Party: Identity, Politics and Discourse of Human Rights in the Search for Security and Legitimacy,” in HakanYavuz, (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party (Salt Lake City: Utah University Press, 2006). 2 The National View (MilliGörüş) could be described in short as the characteristically conservative currency of thought and action plan propagated by NecmettinErbakan since late 1960s. It has been the major ideological program behind the National Order Party, National Salvation Party, Welfare Party, Virtue Party and the Felicity Party politics. It differed from other political movements in Turkey with its persistent support for moral development, religious education, Islamic economy, proximity with the Muslim world, and opposition to the west and westernization. Necmettin Erbakan, Milli Görüş (NationalView), (İstanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 1975); FulyaAtacan, “Explaining Religious Politics at the Crossroad: AKP-SP,” Turkish Studies, vol. 6, no. 2 (2005), pp. 187-188. 215 © Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA www.ijbssnet.com The article intends to contribute to the research conducted on the topic with its extensive empirical research that covers the analysis of speeches, publications, party programs and other types of communications produced by relevant political parties on the subject; again the speeches, documents, court cases and other types of expressions of opinion and reactions raised by various members of secularist state elites; as well as the scholarly views offered by various specialists of Turkish politics. The article begins with a review of the theories of party change to place the findings within the broader domain of party politics. 2. Theoretical Approaches to Party Change Harmel and Janda describe party change as the kind of variations in party strategies, goals, policies or organizational structure.3Party change is often argued to originate from three variables, i.e., leadership change, dominant party coalition change and environmental change. Leadership change could cause party change for reasons of differences between leaders in their talents, characteristics and objectives.4 Dominant party coalition change, secondly, can cause party change particularly when a new party coalition supporting a different set of ideological, organizational and strategic preferences captures the control in the party.5 As for environmental change, Harmel and Janda offer a sophisticated analysis to its influence which can be summarized in short in Table 1.6 Table 1: Environmental Change as an Agent of Party Change Party Type Environmental Stimulus Vote-Maximizing Decline in electoral share Office-Maximizing Exclusion from the government Policy/Ideology Advocating Ideological changes around the globe, pressures from domestic power blocs, globalization etc. Intraparty Democracy Seeking Decline in the number of party members, change in the character and views of party members, In a more specific research conducted over 25 party change cases to explore the impact of environmental changes on party ideological change, Harmel and Jandaobserve a correlation of -0.12 between regime opposition and party ideological extremism. The correlation tells us that if regimes proscribe membership to extremist ideologies, parties tend to cower from adopting extremist ideological policies most often because of the fears that the party could be closed or that party members could be banned from politics.7This article appliesHarmel and Janda‟s thesis on the Turkish casewith very rich and deep empirical research.8 3 Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda, “An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change,” Journal of Theoretical Politics,No. 6 (1994), p. 275 4Frank Wilson, “The Sources of Party Change: The Social Democratic Parties in Britain, France, Germany, and Spain,” in Karl Lawson (ed.), How Political Parties Work (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), pp. 275-281; Robert Harmel and et al. “Performance, Leadership, Factions, and Party Change: An Empirical Analysis,” West European Politics, No.18 (January 1995), pp. 4-5; Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power (London: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 244. 5Robert Harmel and Alexander C. Tan, “Party Actors and Party Change: Does Factional Dominance Matter?” European Journal of Political Research, No. 42 (2003), p. 410; S. B. Wolinetz, “Internal Politics and Rates of Change in the Partij van de Arbeid, 1957-1994.” DNPP Jaarboek 1995 (Groningen: Riksuniversiteit Groningen, 1996), p. 125. 6Harmel and Janda, (1994), pp. 269-271; see also Robert Harmel and Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson, “Application of the Integrated Theory of Party Change to Latin America‟s Volatile Party Systems,” (5 CEISAL European Congress of Latinamericanists, Brussels, Belgium, April 2007). 7 Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda, Parties and Their Environments: Limits to Reform?(New York & London: Longman Inc., 1982), pp. 32, 34. 8The article is based on a hypothesis that regime opposition to anti-secularist activities of the religious right cast itself more firmly in Turkey and acted more toward the moderation of the religious right. This is firstly because Turkish secularism represents one of the most rigid examples of its kinds in the world. And, secondly, the politics of religion differs substantially in Muslim countries like Turkey for Islam embodies a legal and political framework and history. ÜmitCizre-Sakallıoğlu and Menderes Çınar, “Turkey 2002: Kemalism, Islamism and Politics in the Light of „the February 28 Process‟,” South Atlantic Quarterly, No.102 (2003), pp. 233-235; ZiyaÖniş, “Political Islam at the Crossroads: From Hegemony to Co-existence,” Contemporary Politics Vol. 7, No. 4. (2001), pp. 291-292; William Hale, “Christian Democracy and the AKP: Parallels and the Contrasts,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2005), pp. 299-300. 216 International Journal of Business and SocialScience Vol. 4 No. 4; April 2013 3. The Road to the 28 February 1997 NSC Meeting: Background The leading actor of the Turkish religious right in 1970s, the National Salvation Party (NSP), was closed down after the 1980 military intervention on account of violating secularism. After the end of the military rule, a new party was formed in 1983 with the name Welfare Party (WP) as a legatee to the NSP. The WP steadily boosted its electoral share from the first election it participated in 1984 (See Table 1 below). Table 2: Welfare Party Electoral History 1984 1986 1987 1989 1991 1994 1995 General 4.76 7.16 16.9 21.37 Elections percent percent percent percent Municipal 4.44 percent 9.8 percent 19.14 Elections percent
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