Globalization, Islamic activism, and passive revolution in Turkey: the case of Fethullah Gülen

Abstract

This article draws from the multi‐sited ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey and the USA to illustrate how Muslim networks have taken advantage of economic globalization in an effort to passively transform the contours of social hegemony in contemporary Turkey. As a case study, this article presents the Turkish Gülen Movement (GM), a globally expansive, Islamic movement that is rooted in education, media, and business. In coalition with Turkey’s governing ‘Islamist roots’ Adalet ve Kalkınma Partesi (AKP), this article argues that the GM’s market orientation, its promotion of the AKP’s ‘conservative democratic’ political platform, its focus on education and civil society, and its global reach indicate a move to mount a Gramscian ‘war of position’ vis‐à‐vis rival factions in Turkey’s elite. Unique within the field of Islamic activism, however, the GM works in the interests of domestic social transformation by striving to outperform rivals in the market, rather than to overcome them in political confrontation. The GM’s attempt to wage a ‘passive revolution’ thus appears to focus more on ‘increasing the Muslim share’ than it does on ‘Islamicizing’ the secular institutions of the Turkish Republic.