Secular risk governance and the Turkish military’s battle with political Islam, 1980s–2000s

Abstract

Prior to its currently subservient position to civilian politics, the Turkish military had always had an autonomous position with a strong ideological commitment to safeguard secularism. From the 1980s to the end of the 2000s, the Turkish military played a key role in the construction of political Islam as a form of risk and in the securitization of religion both in the public sphere and within its own structure. This article examines the Turkish military’s security discourse around religion and the Islamic headscarf through the experiences of women in military families, and is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2011. Looking at headscarf regulations and the everyday life on military bases, it explores how the military governed Islamism as a form of risk in culturally and sexually specific ways. Drawing on critical security studies that approach risk as a form of social governance, the article examines secular risk governance through the lived experiences of women in military families, the regulation of their daily conduct, and the representation of their bodies and sexual identities through dress. Concluding remarks examine the significance of secular risk governance in the post-2010 era.