Islam and economics in the political sphere: a critical evaluation of the AKP era in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Since Weber’s articulate conceptualisation of the nexus between religion and economics, these phenomena have been examined through various academic viewpoints. While some take religion as a determining factor of economic performance, others argue that it is the economy that influences religiosity. This paper focuses on the manifestation of religion and economics in the political sphere regarding the case of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). After discussing the literature on the relations between religion and economics, it scrutinises the AKP period, considering three specific pillars: (a) the early years of the AKP in which Western economic policies were implemented as a continuation of the Kemal Dervi? period; (b) between 2008 and 2015, when the idea ‘we can do as well’ maintained the centre stage; and (c) 2015 and onwards, when the Islamist influence on economic policy became highly apparent, particularly regarding interest rates. This study argues that the AKP changed politically in terms of Islamic influence upon the economic sphere, however this remains at the discursive level for the time being.     

伊斯兰教与马来西亚政治民主化

马来西亚是伊斯兰国家,其政治发展与种族关系和伊斯兰教息息相关,在政治民主化进程中,种族政治和宗教政治都发挥了重要作用.本文主要通过安瓦尔事件以及伊斯兰党的理念和实践研究伊斯兰教在马来西亚政治民主化中的作用,进而探讨伊斯兰原教旨主义与政治民主化的关系,探讨伊斯兰教能否推动伊斯兰国家的民主化进程.     

Cold war era relations between West Germany and Turkish political Islam: from an anti-communist alliance to a domestic security issue

ABSTRACT

West Germany played a significant role in the growth of Political Islam in Turkey during the Cold War. By recruiting from among Turkish workers in West Germany, Islamist organizations and the religious communities known as cemaats acquired significant economic revenues, which they used to fund their activities in Turkey. Moreover, West Germany served as a liaison between Turkish Islamists and Syrian and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members, who have influenced Political Islam in Turkey since the 1960s. Prominent Muslim Brotherhood representatives in West Germany took on important roles in the recruitment of Turks and also played some part in shaping the ideological development of Turkish Islamists. Due to the pervasiveness of anti-communism in West Germany and Turkey during the Cold War, the established orders in both countries viewed Political Islam as an antidote to the ascendancy of the Left. However, in the 1980s, Bonn and Ankara grew concerned about Islamist organizations becoming further radicalized and impossible to control; the two governments often cooperated in order to bring Political Islam under their own authority.     

The Missing Link: Explaining the Political Mobilisation of Islam in Indonesia

Abstract

Why has an increase in personal piety among Indonesia's Muslims not translated into electoral gains for Islamic political parties? To help explain this conundrum, this article focuses on the role of Indonesia's mass Islamic social organisations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah. Using a political economy lens, it argues that control over state resources and the provision of social welfare facilities have helped political parties maintain power over the years and that NU and Muhammadiyah have at times played important mediating roles in this process. Extending this analysis into Indonesia's contemporary politics, it then proposes that since 2004 in particular, the health and education facilities provided by NU and Muhammadiyah are becoming less important to ordinary people in relation to the services provided by the state. It concludes that this trend has weakened the ability of these organisations to channel public support to political parties/candidates and is one reason why Islamic parties have not been able to capitalise on increased religiosity in the social sphere.     

The feminist movement during the AKP era in Turkey: challenges and opportunities

This article explores women's rights activism in Turkey during the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) time in power (2002–present). A comparative analysis of three feminist campaigns for policy reform shows that in a context in which majority public opinion and the policy preferences of the ruling party militate against feminist policy proposals, a strong political ally (the European Union) was necessary to generate a policy change. The article also argues that the political opportunity structures within which feminists are embedded have been reconfigured over the course of the AKP's three terms in power, leaving the AKP in a stronger position to resist feminists’ demands. This explains the paradox of an internally stronger and more dynamic social movement that, nevertheless, appears to have weakened vis-à-vis the state. Furthermore, because some recent legal reforms do not significantly reflect the AKP's or much of the public's preferences, the movement has been less able to generate implementation of recent policy changes.     

下诺夫哥罗德州政治状况与地区发展前景

下诺夫哥罗德州一度是俄罗斯改革的前沿阵地和代名词,在俄罗斯的政治经济版图中有着特殊的地位。目前,该州是伏尔加河沿岸联邦区的行政中心,其政治经济进程值得关注。从联邦中央与地方的关系来看,莫斯科成功地规范着下诺夫哥罗德州的政治进程,地方政府依赖中央的政治和财政支持。从下诺夫哥罗德州内部的政治发展来看,历任州长面临的都是大致类似的复杂局面:联邦中央、总统派驻伏尔加河沿岸联邦区全权代表、地方政治经济精英、联邦层面的大型企业、地方层面的商业利益,等等诸多方面的相互影响与竞争。由此,州长在联邦层面的工作经历和影响力,在地区层面的协调手段和整合力,即,同时得到中央和地方的支持和认可,并在中央与地方同时具有关键影响力,是地方政治经济良性发展的重要保障。下诺夫哥罗德新任州长格列布·尼基京,年富力强,是俄罗斯新生代州长的代表,也大致具有上述品质,其在下诺夫哥罗德州的执政状况,值得关注。     

Imagining Islam in Kosovo - The social construction of the Kosovar Muslim subject among European political actors

ABSTRACT

Despite being a Muslim-majority society, Kosovo increasingly securitizes practising Muslims by politicizing the ostentatiously pious among them as a threat to Europe’s security and Kosovar identity. Given the EU’s significant discursive and political power in Kosovo, this article pursues the question of how European representatives conceive of pious Kosovar Muslims, and whether this image might explain their securitization. On the basis of 24 semi-structured interviews with various European officials conducted in 2018, I argue that they predominantly imagine pious Kosovar Muslims as influenced by foreign powers through indoctrination, material incentives or appeals to identity, which does condone their securitization. However, this image is in fact shaped by local Kosovar elites who instil such conceptions in European officials because such an image helps them in the pursuit of their own political agendas. The article exposes the intricate mechanism and power relations that underlie this process of policy-relevant knowledge production.     

论郑和与东南亚的伊斯兰教

郑和出身于穆斯林世家,他在国内从事多种伊斯兰教活动。关于郑和在海外传播伊斯兰教一事,中国史籍上没有涉及,但海外却有不少这方面的记载和传说。本文联系当时东南亚的社会背景介绍了海外有关记载,并分析了长期以来中外学者关于郑和在海外传播伊斯兰教的研究很少的原因。作者认为,七下西洋期间,郑和在完成明廷使命之余,在海外传播伊斯兰教是完全可能的。海外有关的记载和传说,固然尚待进一步考证,但毕竟为我们提供了十分宝贵的线索, 有助于我们了解郑和下西洋的全面情况,尤其是他在15世纪东南亚伊斯兰教发展过程中的作用。如事实确凿,这也是中国与东南亚文化交流的组成部分。     

Islam in Kazakhstan: a survey of contemporary trends and sources of securitization

This essay examines the nature of Islam in Kazakhstan and its role in contemporary Kazakh society and politics. It highlights the unique place of Islam in the social and individual experiences of Kazakhs who see Islamic religion as a ‘way of life’, and illuminates several interrelated qualities of the Kazakh religion, such as a strong association of religious identity with ethnic identity of Kazakhs, interpenetration of religious canons with indigenous traditions and a growing tendency toward ‘individualization’ and ‘intimization’ of Islam. Another goal of the paper is to shed light on the worrisome process of the securitization of Islam. The latter phenomenon refers to a discursive practice of presenting Islam as a threat to Kazakhstan despite the prevalence of ‘moderate’ and apolitical manifestations of Islam in the republic. The study documents political interests surrounding securitization of Islam and the context which made the invocation of security in relation to Islam possible.     

全球视野中的菲律宾伊斯兰化历史进程

菲律宾南部的穆斯林问题一直是现代菲律宾社会的热点,历史上的菲律宾也经受过伊斯兰教的重大影响。伊斯兰教传入菲律宾是它在东南亚迅猛的传播、扩张运动的一个组成部分,其传入菲律宾的过程可分为四个历史阶段。在全球视角中,菲律宾的伊斯兰化始于伊斯兰在全世界范围内东扩到达东南亚,一面是伊斯兰教东进,一面是西班牙西进、葡萄牙东进,在东南亚东端的菲律宾相遇碰撞。所以菲律宾的伊斯兰化是整个伊斯兰世界的扩张及其与基督教世界的争夺中的一个组成部分,是基督教世界绕过半个地球来到远东与伊斯兰世界再次发生文明冲突的碰撞的标志。     

Preaching politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya coast

Focusing on the Kenya coast, this article analyses the developing contrast between the place of Islam and Christianity in public politics. It argues that Islam’s association with criticism of the political order contrasts with Christianity, but that this is not the result of inherent difference between the religions. Both have previously provided a language, and space, for political commentary and activism in Kenya. The contrast is rather the contingent result of particular circumstances in Kenya. Christianity has become increasingly associated with affirming clientelism and the accumulation of wealth in a way which is avowedly non-political but in practice legitimates the current political order. Meanwhile, although individual Muslims are more likely to enjoy high political office than was previously the case, Muslims are also more likely to locate their experience as symptomatic of a wider pattern of exclusion in Kenya and link this sense of local injustice to global inequalities.     

Narratives of Islam in Uzbekistan: authoritarian myths and the Janus-state syndrome

ABSTRACT

Under the late Islom Karimov, the authoritarian regimes in Uzbekistan created dual myths of Islam. On the one hand, Islam was encompassed in the larger context of manaviyat (spirituality), and on the other, a myth of an Islamic ‘extremism’ that challenges security and stability on a regional scale was cultivated. This ‘threat’ is so pervasive and pernicious that it commands the authoritarian nature of governance that characterizes the Karimov era, leading to a Janus-state syndrome in which Islam is simultaneously cast as a sine qua non of national myth and an existential threat to state security. This article examines the mythology of political Islam in Uzbekistan and the Janus-state syndrome resulting from the duality of Islamic myth. It argues that a civil society cannot flourish in Central Asia unless moderate Islamic groups are allowed to build the very social structures that provide the foundation for interaction, peaceful coexistence, toleration and pluralism.     

The politics of culture and the space for Islam: Soviet and post-Soviet imaginaries in Uzbekistan

This article examines how possibilities for Muslim expression were and are shaped by the political imaginaries in Soviet-era and independent Uzbekistan. It develops the concept of social ‘imaginary’ in Charles Taylor's critique of Western secular modernity. Political imaginaries are the assumptions about the nature of being, the essential categories through which the world is understood and acted upon, that are produced within dominant state discourses and that shape the space for the political. The article compares the Soviet vision of socialist modernity and the logic of the current state ideology in independent Uzbekistan, and discusses how these have framed the possibilities for being Muslim. It argues that the category of culture is produced in distinct and contrasting ways in these imaginaries, and plays a central role in delineating the public space for Islam.     

A word of justice: Islam and state repression in the North-West Caucasus

How does state repression of non-militant Muslims contribute to violent Islamism in the North Caucasus? This article considers the case of the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, where young residents' embrace of normative Islam post-perestroika roiled the Sovietized Muslim and secular establishments. Greatly aggravated by the brutal and indiscriminate response from law enforcement agencies, this confrontation culminated in the 2005 Nalchik uprising, the North Caucasus' largest insurgent offensive of the past decade. In the culturally comparable nearby republic of Adygeya, by contrast, analogous state repression in the wake of the uprising did not produce a violent outcome. Salient features of the mosque–state relationship in both republics are examined here, particularly the rationale of Kabardino-Balkaria's Muslim opposition leaders before and after their public endorsement of militant jihadism. The author then posits ways of marginalizing such leaders and thereby limiting the scope for conflict.     

伊斯兰教与东南亚国家现代化关系刍议

东南亚是世界穆斯林人口最多的地区之一,伊斯兰教对穆斯林占人口多数的印尼、马来西亚和文莱的现代化进程产生深刻影响,也对穆斯林人口占少数的新加坡、泰国和菲律宾现代化进程产生一定影响.本文认为由于伊斯兰国家的政治制度、经济发展水平、教育程度、社会结构、国际环境不同,伊斯兰与现代化的关系是多样的,不仅中东和东南亚地区伊斯兰与现代化的关系有较大不同,而且东南亚国家间亦有较大差别,表现出伊斯兰与现代化关系的多样性.     

Islam,ethnicity and the state: contested spaces of legitimacy and power in the Kurdish-Turkish public sphere

ABSTRACT

The pro-Kurdish nationalist mobilization in Turkey was mostly built on the right to self-determination aligned with the Marxist-Leninist ideology for the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the early 1980s and ethnic minority rights for the secular-leftist pro-Kurdish legal parties in the 1990s. The Turkish state mostly framed the legal and illegal pro-Kurdish mobilization as ‘the enemy of the state’ and ‘the enemy of Islam’ in its counter-insurgency efforts. However, in the 2000s, the PKK and the pro-Kurdish legal parties became more tolerant and inclusive toward Islamic Kurdish identity by mobilizing their sympathizers in events such as ‘Civic Friday Prayers’ and a ‘Democratic Islamic Congress’. This move aimed to function as an antidote to the rising popularity of the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Kurdish Hizbullah in the early 2000s. In other words, Islam and pious Muslim identity has increasingly become contested among Turkish Islamists, Kurdish Islamists, and the secular Kurdish nationalists. This article seeks to unpack why, how, and under what conditions such competing actors and mechanisms shape the discursive and power relationships in the Kurdish-Turkish public sphere.     

Teaching Islam at a home school: Muslim women and critical thinking in Uzbekistan

In this article I describe and analyse non-institutionalized religious education among local women in Uzbekistan. I argue that while exhibiting vestiges of ‘traditional’ objectives, methods of teaching, and models of knowledge transmission, and incorporating elements of educational reforms advocated by the Central Asian reformers in the early 1900s, and of Soviet pedagogy, the dynamics of such education foster students' critical thinking. By enabling students to think critically about their lives and social environment, the non-institutionalized religious education does not have one predetermined outcome, but ensures social change that starts on an individual level, whereby a student can, but does not have to, engage politically with the state, which systematically intervenes in shaping its citizens' religious lives.     

韩国政治社会化的历史分析及启示

政治社会化是政治文化的传播、维持和改变。一国政治文化主要依赖于内部诸条件的相互作用与耦合,但外部因素也是影响政治文化乃至政治社会化进程的重要变量。由于特殊的历史原因,韩国社会经历过多次传统社会的价值观和生活规范的解体、分化与重组。韩国政治文化及其社会化受外部因素的影响特别大,尤其是受中国、日本和美国的影响巨大。从历史的角度考察三国对韩国政治文化和政治社会化的影响,分析韩国政治社会化的历史与现实,将为包括中国在内的诸多发展中国家走向政治现代化提供有益借鉴与启示。     

马来西亚政党政治的变化及其走向

巫统一党独大是马来西亚长期以来政党政治的一大特点 ,但是 1999年末马来西亚第 10次大选却表明这种局面正在发生明显的变化 ,这必将对马来西亚的政局产生深远的影响。本文试从马来西亚政党政治变化入手 ,分析变化的成因 ,并对今后一个时期马来西亚政党政治和政局的发展趋势作一展望。