THE INFRASTRUCTURAL POLITICS OF LAİKLİK IN THE WRITING OF THE 1961 TURKISH CONSTITUTION

Abstract

The current state of the literature on the institutions regulating the relation between state and religion in Turkey is limited to the question of finding a better description of the Turkish case in a comparative perspective. Instead of offering an alternative comparative conceptualization of state and religion relations in Turkey, this essay focuses on political actors’ use of comparative conceptualizations in the writing of the 1961 Constitution. It looks at the records of the writing of the 1961 Constitution in three volumes and other supporting primary sources to better understand the relation between comparative conceptualizations, institutional proposals, the context and political interest. It addresses the following question: which conceptualization of laiklik has been put forth in defence of which institutional arrangement and for what political goal? Competing understandings of the ‘West’ – institutional versus sociological – presented by competing political interests in the assembly debates reveal a new angle on the question of the role of the idea of the ‘West’ in politics. These different comparative conceptualizations converge in defence of state involvement in the affairs of the majority religion for different political ends. I argue that the centrality of the concern with infrastructure in the debates over the relation of state and religion accounts for how three different political positions – controlling religion, utilizing religion and defending religion – converge on a state role in the religious affairs of the majority. What I call the politics of infrastructure offers new light on the gap between comparative conceptualizations and positions on institutions, and also the political life of sociological arguments grounded on culturalism, expertism and historicism.