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Re-Thinking Popular Sovereignty and Secularism in Turkey and Beyond

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Re-Thinking Popular Sovereignty and Secularism in Turkey and Beyond Re-thinking Popular Sovereignty and Secularism in Turkey and Beyond Sinem Gürbey Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 Sinem Gürbey All rights reserved ABSTRACT Re-thinking Popular Sovereignty and Secularism in Turkey and Beyond Sinem Gürbey The dissertation analyzes two interrelated issues, popular sovereignty and secularism, through the lens of the Turkish experience with democracy. Its objective is, first, to deconstruct Turkish secularism, laiklik, linked to the political theology of the homogeneous, sovereign nation and the attendant citizenship regime that only includes Muslim Turks. The dissertation, secondly, aims to reconstitute secularism and popular sovereignty differently in order to make room for pluralism, law, and ethics in the processes of collective will and identity formation, that is, to open up democracy to its others. The prevalent assumption in the literature that Turkish secularism is hostile to religion, aiming to eliminate Islam from the public sphere in a coercive manner is challenged through an analysis of religion textbooks used in public and military education from 1923 to 2010. This analysis suggests that secularism in Turkey does not simply entail the control of religion, but also the instrumentalization of Islam in securing political legitimacy, social integration, and sacrifice for the nation through the Islamic notion of martyrdom. The dissertation also questions the new, allegedly passive version of secularism defended by pro- Islamic conservatives that combines the ontological sovereignty of God with the political sovereignty of the people understood in majoritarian terms. Both of these models, despite their different underlying premises, are authoritarian, thereby, cannot guarantee the freedom of conscience. As opposed to both of these models, the dissertation defends a strict wall of separation between religion and politics at the church-state level, rejecting symbolic, material or political recognition of religion by the state; and a more permeable wall of separation at the level of political interactions among citizens when they are engaged in public debate about coercive laws and policies. With respect to the related question of popular sovereignty, the dissertation takes issue with the political theological concept of the people as a unitary, homogenous subject endowed with a pre-political will (the early republican conception) as well as its seemingly more mundane version articulated in terms of the majority principle (the pro-Islamic conservative conception). The concept of “the people,” in its both nationalist and majoritarian versions, the dissertation suggests, is inherently linked to the Schmittian conception of the political as friend-enemy distinction which sacrifices constitutionalism and modern individual rights. Following the insights of Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida on the nature of democratic constitutional state, the dissertation defends a conception of “friendly living together among strangers” by means of positive law, based on a weak, internally differentiated conception of popular sovereignty. The dissertation, in other words, affirms the internal, albeit paradoxical, relationship between popular sovereignty and human rights. TABLE OF CONTENTS: CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION I. Objectives and Theses…………………………...………………...………………1 II. Turkish Secularism, Laiklik, in Practice…………………………..………………3 III. Re-thinking Laiklik………………………………………………..…………….11 IV. Re-Thinking Popular Sovereignty……………………………….……………..35 V. The Structure of the Dissertation………………………………………………..45 CHAPTER II: SECULARISM AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN TURKEY I. The First Period of Religious Education (1923 1947)……………………………61 II. The Second Period of Religious Education (1947-1980)…….………………….85 III. The Third Period of Religious Education (1980-2010)…….…………………..90 IV. The Diyanet During the AKP Rule…………………….…………………….…96 CHAPTER III: WEBER AND SCHMITT: THE POLITICS OF SALVATION I. Weber, Protestantism, and the Disenchantment of the World…………..………109 II. Disenchantment and the Autonomy of Science………………………………...120 III. Disenchantment and the Autonomy of Politics……………………..…………127 IV. Carl Schmitt and the Primacy of the Political……………………………...….136 V. The Rationality of Catholicism and the Priority of Life………………….……140 VI. Schmitt’s Post-Catholic Phase and the Friend-Enemy Distinction….….……..145 VII. Mouffe and Agonism…………………………………………………………152 i CHAPTER IV: SECULAR MODERNITY, POPULAR SOVEREIGNY, AND RIGHTS I. Talal Asad’s Critique of Secular Modernity……………………………………163 II. Bringing Rights and Democracy Back in: Jürgen Habermas…………….….....178 III: Discourse Ethics and The Priority of Justice………………………………….185 CHAPTER V: FRIENDSHIP, JUSTICE, AND DEMOCRACY I. What is Deconstruction?........................................................................................................204 II. Deconstruction/Secularization of Sovereignty…………………..……………..208 III. The Politics of Friendship……...…………………………………...…………212 IV. Democracy, the Rule of Law and Justice…………….………………………..224 V. Habermas Revisited: The Post-Secular Democracy……………………………237 CHAPTER VI: RE-THINKING LAÏCITÉ I. Charles Taylor: The Overlapping Consensus Model of Secularism…………….254 II. Cecile Laborde: Critical Republican Secularism……………………………….272 CONCLUDING REMARKS……..………………………..…………………….289 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………….…………………..296 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I have never thought that writing this section would be such a difficult experience. I am not just talking about the difficulty of putting an end to a project that took me almost a decade to finish but also that of expressing my heartfelt gratitude to everybody who contributed to it. I do not believe I can ever find the right words, if there are any, to thank properly the group of people who supported and encouraged me, my decisions and my ideas in this journey. Nonetheless, one must do so, perhaps especially when one thinks there are no right words or even the right language to do so and I shall. I should start with my academic adviser, Jean L. Cohen, a political theorist who needs no introduction. Looking back I still cannot believe I have had the honor and the privilege of writing my dissertation under the close supervision of such a distinguished scholar who inspired me and my work with her wisdom, intelligence as well as with her vision of a truly democratic society. Even though working with her was not very easy at times due to the very high standards she sets for herself and her students, it was most definitely the most rewarding experience of my academic career. Not only did she challenge every aspect of my work with very difficult questions and criticisms, but also gave me extensive freedom to shape my ideas even when we disagreed. I am grateful to her for pushing me to write and to create my own, hopefully democratic, voice in the process. I was also very lucky to have Lucy M. Goodhart as the second reader of my iii dissertation who has always been incredibly enthusiastic about reading and discussing my work, even the parts that were beyond her area of specialization. Our discussions and written exchanges enabled me to put my scattered ideas into perspective and to convey them to others in a much more coherent manner. I can never thank her enough for being the person she is, for without her positive spirit I could not have endured this journey. I would like to thank the Sabancı Family, especially late Sakıp Sabancı and Güler Sabancı for having founded a world class university where I was introduced to political theory for the first time. I will always be indebted to the Sabancı community for providing me generous intellectual as well as financial resources during my undergraduate studies. I am grateful to Meltem Müftüler-Baç for inviting me to Sabancı University in the Fall of 2010 and giving me the chance to discuss my work with the distinguished social scientists who influenced my ideas at the beginning. I owe special thanks to Ahmet Evin for reading and commenting on most of my graduate work as well as the entire manuscript of the dissertation. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Columbia University in general and the Political Science Department in particular for their generosity, both academic and financial. I owe special thanks to the Institute of Comparative Literature and Society and its founding director, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, for funding my first year of studies at Columbia. I am also indebted to late Brian Barry for encouraging my work at the beginning of my graduate studies. Alfred Stepan is another distinguished political scientist with whom I had the iv opportunity to work with extensively during the initial stages of my dissertation writing. I am grateful to him for reading my work with patience and always providing me with a seat in his crowded seminars. I can also never thank him enough for inviting prominent Turkish political scientists to Columbia and giving me the opportunity to discuss my work with them. Among such people, Ahmet T. Kuru deserves special thanks for reading several of my works and helping me shape my ideas. My critical engagement with his work rests on genuine feelings of deep gratitude and utmost respect for a fellow political scientist and friend. I would like to thank Berna Turam for inviting me to Amherst College in the Spring of 2008 to the “Religious Modernity and Secularist Resistance” Conference, where
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