Refah Party Research Articles

The Internal-External Dialectic: The Political and the Economic in the Foreign Policy of Turkey’s Refah Party

The primary objective of this study is to examine the dialectical relationship between internal and external factors which shaped the foreign policy approach of the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, the RP) in Turkey in the 1990s. To grasp the class characteristics of the RP, the relationship between the RP and the state within the power bloc, and its relations with global capitalism, this study addresses the connection between neoliberalism and political Islam in Turkey. To achieve this goal, the study focuses on social relations of production, relations at the state level, and international relations which shaped the foreign policy of the RP. Accordingly, it examines the dialectical relationship between the political and the economic which shaped the material basis of the RP and its foreign policy. The study concludes that the analysis of the RP’s foreign policy requires some form of a combination of internal and external factors which form essential extra economic and political conditions for social cohesion. Finally, it demonstrates that there was neither a shift nor a change in Turkish foreign policy under the RP-led coalition government during 1996 and 1997.

The making of the ‘new’ patriarch in women’s self-narrations of political empowerment: the case of local female AKP politicians in the aftermath of 2009 elections

ABSTRACTWomen’s political empowerment has emerged as a particular field of interest in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in Turkey. Women’s absence in many spheres of life, including the political sphere, has become one of the main references to discuss the patriarchal characteristics of the established regime. The AKP was founded in 2001 by those who claimed to distance themselves from the Islamist Refah Party. The AKP’s particular emphasis on the active roles and status of women within the party and their empowerment as active agents of politics was used as an important mark of distinction from earlier versions of political Islam. In this study, which focuses on the self-narrations of AKP female politicians nominated and elected in the 2009 local elections, the aim is to expand the discussion on how the AKP female representatives narrate their experience of this ‘political empowerment’ stressed in the AKP’s program and whether they subvert, transform or reproduce patriarchal authority.

Rethinking Islam and liberal democracy: Islamist women in Turkish politics

Yesim Arat’s work, Rethinking Islam and Liberal Democracy: Islamist Women in Turkish Politics, is a welcome addition to the remarkably rich academic discourse on Islam in contemporary Turkey. Several excellent social scientists both in Turkey and abroad have contributed to elevating the discussion on Islam in modern Turkey to a complex and sophisticated level. For example, Jenny White’s award-winning work, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (2002), is an ethnography of Istanbul which maps the origins and continuing appeal of Islamic politics in Turkish society. Esra Ozyurek’s notable work, Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey (2006), demonstrates how power struggles between secular and Islamist political movements are reconfi guring popular notions of citizenship and the sacred in Turkey. Th e work under review not only engages the available scholarship, it adds a new dimension to the discussion. Based on a study of women activists of the Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party in Turkey, Rethinking Islam and Liberal Democracy examines the relationship between secularism and Islam in a liberal democracy. Th e author attempts to understand the women activists of the Refah Party using qualitative methods via in-depth interviews. She argues that, although the Refah Party women’s organizations only came into being in 1989 and were shut down in 1998 along with the party by a constitutional court decision, they played an important role in bringing their party to power and engaging a large female constituency in politics (1). Arat’s work is particularly valuable because, in tracing the “cross-fertilization” between Islamists and their secular adversaries, she provides an im-

Islamic political identity in Turkey

In November of 2002, the Justice and Development Party swept to victory in the Turkish parliamentary elections. Because of the party's roots, its electoral triumph has sparked host of questions both in Turkey and in the West: Does the party harbor secret Islamist agenda? Will the new government seek to overturn nearly century of secularization stemming from Kemal Ataturk's early-twentieth-century reforms? Most fundamentally, is Islam compatible with democracy? In this penetrating work, M. Hakan Yavuz seeks to answer these questions, and to provide comprehensive analysis of political identity in Turkey. He begins in the early twentieth century, when Kemal Ataturk led Turkey through process of rapid secularization and crushed opposition to his authoritarian rule. Yavuz argues that since Ataturk's death in 1938, however, Turkey has been gradually moving away from his militant secularism and experiencing a quiet Muslim reformation. political identity is not homogeneous, says Yavuz, but can be modern and progressive as well as conservative and potentially authoritarian. While the West has traditionally seen Kemalism as an engine for reform against reactionary political Islam, in fact the Kemalist establishment has traditionally used the Islamic threat as an excuse to avoid democratization and thus hold on to power. Yavuz offers an account of the of 1997, in which the Kemalist military-bureaucratic establishment overthrew the democratically elected coalition government, which was led by the pro-Islamic Refah party. He argues that the soft coup plunged Turkey into renewed legitimacy crisis which can only be resolved by the liberalization of the political system. The book ends with discussion of the most recent election and its implications for Turkey and the Muslim world. Yavuz argues that social movements can be important agents for promoting democratic and pluralistic society, and that the Turkish example holds long term promise for the rest of the Muslim world. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, this work offers sophisticated new understanding of the role of political Islam in one of the world's most strategically important countries.

Democratic Civility and Modern Political Ideals

Democratic Civility and Modern Political Ideals Char Miller (bio) Review of Robert W. Hefner, ed., Democratic Civility: The History and Cross-Cultural Possibility of a Modern Political Ideal (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pubs., 1998). 330 pp. Recently, the phrase “civil society” has attracted the attention of political thinkers from remarkably divergent perspectives. Some use the concept to defend free market societies, which distribute many citizen services according to consumer demand and purchase. Others use the concept to promote democracy through the politicization of so-called politically neutral aspects of life, such as family, work and leisure. Without limiting the phrase too substantially to any particular project, Democratic Civility explores the histories and uses of the idea of “civil society.” Tying the concept of “civil society” securely to its sociological, cultural and material worlds, the authors collected in Democratic Civility attempt to use the idea of “civil society” to enrich our understandings of the social conditions that feed the possibility of democracy. The authors pursue careful examinations of the various genealogies of “civil society” as well as the diverse cultural experiences it entails. The pluralistic and comparative focus of the project provides much of its considerable strength. The authors—brought together by the Civil Society and Civic Values program at the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture—approach “civil society” from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, particularly from sociology, anthropology and politics. They take questions regarding the role of theory in life very seriously and pursue these questions, often comparatively articulated, through a wide range of institutions including family, religion, and state. Brigitte Berger’s “The Social Roots of Prosperity and Liberty” claims that “civil society” with its economic and social benefits was created by a particular familiar organization. Rasat Kasaba and Robert Hefner examine religious institutions, particularly elements within contemporary Islam that contribute to contemporary notions of civil society. Kasaba examines the political consequences of the increasing power of the pro-Islamic Refah Party on Turkish life, and concludes that [End Page 173] the growth of this power has relied on conceptions of civil society and produced elements of social tolerance (276). Hefner examines the Islamic state of Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, for evidence of pluralism within Islam and the social mechanisms by which elements of Islam might work to embody the practices of civil society. Hefner offers possibilities without offering inevitabilities. There are elements articulated by Muslim leaders within the Islamic society of Indonesia that could contribute to a more vigorous civil society (289). Of all the institutions that inculcate the values of “civil society,” the state receives the most attention in Democratic Civility. “Democracy always depends upon something larger than itself,” claims Hefner in his introduction (18). Generally, the something larger in the essays collected here is the state. Not just any state, the authors agree, but a state with several particular elements. The state must be strong enough to control society, yet weak enough to be limited in that control, a claim made very explicitly in the essays by Dan Chirot and John Hall. A state guarantees rights, liberties, “the pleasures of settled existence” (55), and the peaceful transience of a consumer society (63). Chirot wants to reserve the term “civil society” for those societies that self-organize in cooperation with a responsive and self-limited state. In this context Chirot suggests one of the paradoxes of the modern nation-state and one of the reoccurring problems in the different accounts of civil society: the way in which liberal democracies, by surrendering some control to citizens actually generate greater strength than more authoritarian governments. “At the most abstract level, what the history of the late twentieth century forces us to notice about the states of liberal democracy is that they have greater strength than those of more authoritarian social systems” (55). This abstract point deserves and requires greater explanation. If liberal states have, in some ways, power that authoritarian states lack, then liberals and other friends of “civil society” face serious dilemmas concerning the powers of the state. By comparing the idea of civil society in many different societies and states, the authors suggest various genealogies possible for the phrase, critique the idea that...

Challenging the rise of nationalist-religious parties in India and Turkey

Examinations of how the secular state deals with the threat posed by ‘nationalist-religious' parties (as distinct from ‘religious-nationalist’ parties) has received little attention. Consequently, this paper focuses on the available strategies for dealing with relatively moderate nationalist-religious parties like the Refah Party in Turkey and the Bharatiya Janata Party in India. In particular, it examines two opposed approaches: that which seeks to exclude and isolate such parties, as in the case of Turkey; and that which adopts a policy of engagement, as in India. The paper then assesses the relative merits of these two strategies and concludes that the latter approach provides a more effective means of dealing with nationalist-religious parties, especially in democratic countries.

THE STATE OF POLITICAL ISLAM IN TURKEY COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS WITH PRE-REVOLUTIONARY IRAN

Turkey has its own unique complexities, and any attempt to com e up with an overarching general explanation will inevitably lead to oversimplification. Describing Turkish politics as a battleground between secularism and fundamentalism and focusing on the looming threat of political Islam make good headlines, but a poor baç;is for analysis. Prior to the 1995 general elections for example, Tansu Çiller, the the n Prime Minister and leader of the True Path Party, daimed that should the Refah Party win the forthcoming elections, Turkey was destined to became another Iran. This prospect, as the Prime Minister put it, would result in the fall of Turkeyand 'if Turkey falls', she wamed, Islamic 'fundamentalism will reach Europe'.4

The Poverty of Democracy in Turkey: The Refah Party Episode

The rise of Islamist political movements through open electoral competition has constituted a challenge to the political systems of numerous Middle Eastern countries in recent years and has led to a rethinking of the question of compatibility between Islam and democracy. Esposito and Voll (1996, pp. 193-94) have pointed out that while many unquestioningly believe that Islam and democracy are fundamentally opposed, “many Muslims have made advocacy of democracy the litmus test for the credibility and legitimacy of regimes and for political parties and opposition.”

Pseudo‐democratic politics and populist possibilities: the rise and demise of Turkey's Refah party

Within the span of only a few years, Turkish politics witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of the Refah Party. This transformation from relative obscurity to the head of a ruling coalition and eventual banning was caused by a combination of features inherent in the Turkish political system and the party itself. Turkish democracy features the continued interference of the military in domestic political affairs on the one hand and a preponderance of largely centrist and bland ‘mainstream’ parties on the other. Nevertheless, the existence of ostensibly democratic institutions such as elections or a parliament enable potential political aspirants who are outside the mainstream to make bids for power through officially sanctioned channels. The Refah's rise was a product of the perceived uniqueness of its ideological platform and its unparalleled focus on grass roots voter mobilization. Its fall, however, came when the military considered it to have overstepped the bounds of acceptable political behaviour within the country's narrowly defined democracy.

Turkey and the Middle East in the 1990s

With the end of the cold war, and particularly following the Gulf War, Turkey abandoned its low-profile posture in the Middle East for a more activist regional role. The Kurdish issue, the single most important item on the country's domestic and foreign policy agendas, has also had important implications for Turkey's Middle East policy, further exacerbating longstanding problems with Syria that in turn contributed to Ankara's decision to sign a military agreement with Israel. The rise to power of the Islamist Refah party in July 1996 in a coalition government is likely to have significant implications for the country's identity and relations both with the West and the Islamic world.

Refah Party and the City Administration of Istanbul: Liberal Islam, Localism and Hybridity

As Islam becomes an increasingly salient element of political life in various countries around the world, there is a growing need to make sense of the new forms and meanings Islam assumes in its various manifestations. It is obvious by now that complex mechanisms surrounding the politics of Islam cannot be adequately understood by the employment of such broad and overgeneralizing categories as “reactionism”, “fundamentalism” or “conservatism.” Political Islam, far from being a unified social movement with a coherent political aim, is a fragmented, multi-faceted phenomenon which cannot, therefore, be adequately understood through singular categories.