Islamist and Nationalistic Attachments as Determinants of Political Preferences in Turkey
In this article we examine the mechanism by which the political opinions of Turkish citizens can be explained on the basis of attachments to Islam and the Turkish nation. Using insights from political psychology we review the dynamic role of these considerations as determinants of political judgements. We explore studies that question the appropriateness of a unidimensional scale of Islamism vs. Secularism in explaining citizens’ political placements, and we argue that the two ideologies can influence concurrently the way citizens think about politics. We use data from our survey of 107 Turkish citizens conducted in 2009 to examine whether attachments to Islam and the nation function as co-determinants of public attitudes. We focus on the political orientations of supporters of the Republican People’s Party Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP . We expect that Kemalist nationalism but not Islamist attachments dominate the considerations of these voters in line with their party’s positions. We uncover significant evidence of Islamist considerations in their evaluation of political issues indicating that Islamist and nationalistic considerations co-shape citizens’ attitudes.
Keywords:
Political ideology, political behaviour, attitudinal orientation, Kemalist Secular Nationalism Islamism, Religiosity.,
___
- Ali Çarkoğlu and Melvin J. Hinich, “A Spatial Analysis of Turkish Party Preferences”, Electoral Studies, Vol. 25, No.2 (June 2006), pp. 369- 392.
- Ali Çarkoğlu and Binnaz Toprak, Religion, Society and Politics in a Changing Turkey, TESEV Publications, 2007, at http://www.tesev.org.tr/UD_OBJS/PDF/DEMP/RSP%20-%20 Turkey.pdf [last visited 26 February 2011].
- Ibid. For the corresponding findings please see p. 33 and figure in p. 42.
- Ibid. Interestingly they point out that “After being told that that the terms ‘Islamists’ and ‘Secularists’ were often used in Turkey and that ‘0’ means ‘secular’ and ‘10’ means ‘Islamist’ on a scale of 0-10, 20.3% of the respondents defined themselves as ‘secular’, 48.5% as ‘Islamist’ and 23.4% placed themselves in the centre of these two extremes. However as shown by the answers given to some of our questions, the wing that we can describe as ‘secular’ consists of almost 30% of the people, which enables us distinguish between the secularists and the Islamists” (pp. 32- 33).
- Hakan M. Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Haldun Gülalp, “Globalization and Political Islam: The Social Bases of Turkey’s Welfare Party”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3 (August 2001), pp 433- 448; Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, “The Logic of Contemporary Turkish Politics”, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 1997).
- Ali Çarkoğlu, “The Turkish Party System in Transition: Party Performance and Agenda Change”, Political Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3 (1998), pp. 544- 571.
- Saban Taniyici, “Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey: Islamist Welfare Party’s Pro-EU Turn”, Party Politics, Vol. 9, No. 4 (July 2003), pp. 463-483.
- Cem Başlevent, Hasan Kirmanioğlu and Burhan Şenatlar, “Party Preference and Economic Voting in Turkey (Now that the Crisis is Over)”, Party Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3 (May 2009), pp. 377-391.
- Feldman, Stanley, “Values, Ideology and the Structure of Political Attitudes”, in David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy and Robert Jervis (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 477- 508.
- Çarkoğlu, “The Turkish Party System in Transition”, pp. 544- 571.
- at the American Enterprise Institute, 29 January 2004, in Hakan M. Yavuz, The Emergence
- of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti, Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic studies, The
- University of Utah Press, 2004, pp. 333- 340.
- Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey.
- Graham Fuller, “Turkey’s Strategic Model: Myths and Realities”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Summer 2004), pp. 51-64.
- Ian O. Lesser, “Turkey: ‘Recessed’ Islamic Politics and Convergence with the West”, in Rabasa Angel, Cheryl Benard, Peter Chalk, Christine Fair, Theodore Karasik, Rollie Lal, Ian Lesser and David Thaler (eds.), The Muslim World after 9/11, USA, Rand, 2004, pp. 175- 203.
- On the centre-periphery discussion, see, Şerif Mardin, “Centre-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?”, Daedalus, Vol. 2 (1973), pp. 169- 191. On the left-right cleavage see Ali Çarkoğlu, “The Turkish Party System in Transition”, pp. 544- 571. On the dichotomy between Islamism and Kemalist secularism see Çarkoğlu, “The Turkish Party System in Transition”, pp. 544- 571; Taniyici, “Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey, pp. 463- 483.
- For example the World Values Survey asks questions about politics and society in a general way, without a clear focus on Turkish society, at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ [last visited 18 July 2012].
- According to the 2002, 2007 and 2011 general elections the AKP had a strong victory in the whole country. The province of Ankara received a large share of the AKP vote. In 2002 AKP received 38.11 % (820,260) of the vote share in Ankara, while the CHP only
- ISSN: 1300-8641
- Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 2 Sayı
- Başlangıç: 1996
- Yayıncı: T.C Dışişleri Bakanlığı