Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T02:47:32.374Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Invigorating Democracy in Turkey: The Agency of Organized Islamist Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

Hürcan Aslı Aksoy
Hürcan Aslı Aksoy*
Affiliation:
University of Tuebingen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, henceforth AKP) came to power in 2002 with the promise of consolidating democracy and strengthening civil society to further Turkey's bid to join the European Union (EU). To this end, in its first term in the parliament (2002–2007), the AKP implemented a set of political reforms that lifted the restrictions on political and civil rights such as the freedom of assembly, associations, and expression and improved the rule of law (Kubicek 2005; Müftüler-Baç 2005). The AKP, as it has promised in its election campaigns, also engaged civil society into policy-making processes. In the initial years of the AKP, diverse civil society actors gathered on broad civil society platforms and worked with the AKP government to consolidate Turkish democracy (Keyman 2010; Kubicek 2005). Although the Islamist segments of civil society began to integrate into the secular political sphere and to voice their demands more freely, Islamist women's civil society organizations (CSOs) have not fully benefited from this transforming political atmosphere under the AKP.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 146 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akboğa, Sema. 2013. “Turkish Civil Society Divided by the Headscarf Ban.” Democratization, January 10, 2013. DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2012.751976CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvarez, Sonia. 1990. Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women's Movements in Transition Politic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Arat, Yeşim. 1994. “Toward a Democratic Society. The Women's Movement in Turkey in the 1980s.” Women's Studies International Forum 17 (2–3): 241–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arat, Yeşim. 1998. “Feminist, Islamist and Political Change in Turkey.” Political Psychology 19 (1): 117–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arat, Yeşim. 2000. “From Emancipation to Liberation: The Changing Role of Women in Turkey's Public Realm”, Journal of International Affairs 54 (1): 107–23.Google Scholar
Arat, Yeşim. 2008. “Contestation and Collaboration: Women's Struggles for Empowerment in Turkey.” In The Cambridge History of TURKEY, Vol. 4: Turkey in the Modern World, ed. Kasaba, Reşat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 388–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arat, Yeşim. 2010. “Religion, Politics and Gender Equality in Turkey: Implications of a Democratic Paradox?” Third World 31 (6): 869–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ayata, Ayşe Güneş, and Tütüncü, Fatma. 2008. “Party Politics of the AKP (2002–2007) and the Predicaments of Women at the Intersection of the Westernist, Islamist and Feminist Discourses in Turkey.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 35 (3): 363–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benli, Fatma. 2010. İstatiki verilere göre Türkiye'de kadınların genel konumu ve başörtüsü yasağının cinsiyet endeksine etkisi [Women's status in Turkey according to the statistical data and the effects of the headscarf ban on gender index]. Istanbul: AKDER Yayinlari.Google Scholar
Bodur, Marella. 2005. “Modernity, Social Movements and Demoracy: Feminist Movements in Post-1980 Turkey.” Ph.D. thesis. Carleton University.Google Scholar
Cindoglu, Dilek, and Zencirci, Gizem. 2008. “The Headscarf in Turkey in the Public and State Spheres,” Middle Eastern Studies 44 (5): 791–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coşar, Simten, and Yeğenoğlu, Metin. 2011. “New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey? Gender Policy in the Age of AKP.” Southern European Society and Politics 16 (4): 555–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coşar, Simten, and Gençoğlu Onbaşi, Funda. 2008. “Women's Movement in Turkey at a Crossroads: From Women's Rights Advocacy to Feminism.” Southern European Society and Politics 13 (3): 325–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Çubuk, Burcugül. 2012. “Hidayet Şefkatli Tuksal: Çocukların karnı ‘kutsal annelik’ edebiyatıyla değil, yiyecekle doyuyor.” [Kids cannot be fulled up by the ‘sacred mothers’ rhetoric, but by food]. Kadınların Kurtuluşu, June 17, 2012. http://kadinlarinkurtulusu.org/hidayet-sefkatli-tuksal-cocuklarin-karni-kutsal-annelikedebiyatiyla-degil-yiyecekle-doyuyor/ (accessed February 27, 2015).Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 1994. “Rethinking Civil Society. Toward Democratic Consolidation.” Journal of Democracy 5 (5): 4–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diner, Cagla, and Toktaş, Şule. 2010. “Waves of Feminism in Turkey: Kemalist, Islamist and Kurdish Women's Movements in an Era of Globalization.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 12 (1): 41–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Economist. “Turkish Women and Islam: Fighting Free. The Paradox of Devout Muslim Feminists.” November 4, 2004. http://www.economist.com/node/3353757 (accessed February 15, 2015).Google Scholar
Ertürk, Yakın. 2006. “Turkey's Modern Paradoxes: Identity Politics, Women's Agency, and Universal Rights.” In Global Feminism: Transnational Women's Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, ed. Marx Ferree, Myra and Mari Tripp, Aili. New York, London: New York University Press, 79–109.Google Scholar
European Stability Initiative (ESI). 2007. “Sex and Power in Turkey: Feminism, Islam and the Maturing of Turkish Democracy.” Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, 1–40.Google Scholar
Franceschet, Susan. 2001. “Women in Politics in Post-Transitional Democracies. The Chilean Case.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 3 (2): 207–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Göle, Nilüfer. 1996. TheForbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Htun, Mala, and Laurel Weldon, S.. 2012. “The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005.” American Political Science Review 106 (3): 548–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Insel, Ahmet. 2003. “The AKP and Normalizing Democracy in Turkey.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2/3): 293–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaquette, Jane, ed. 1994. The Women's Movement in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Jaquette, Jane, ed. 2000. “Women and Democracy: Past, Present, Future.” Presented at the Democracy Seminar, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Kadıoğlu, Ayşe. 2005. “Civil Society, Islam and Democracy in Turkey: A Study of Three Islamic Non-Governmental Organizations.” Muslim World 95 (1): 23–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kancı, Tuba, Bayraktar, Damla, Rumelili, Bahar, and Keyman, Fuat. 2010. “Women of Turkey and Their Acts of European Citizenship.” Enacting European Citizenship (ENACT) Work Package 6 Deliverable 5. http://www.enacting-citizenship.eu/index.php/sections/deliverables_item/416/ (accessed February 27, 2015).Google Scholar
Kara, Burak. 2012. “Keyfi kürtaj olmuyorlar” [They don't have an abortion because of an arbitrary decision]. Vatan, May 25, 2012.Google Scholar
Keyman, Fuat. 2010. “Modernization, Globalization and Democratization in Turkey.” Constellation 17 (2): 312–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kubicek, Paul. 2005. “The European Union and Grassroots Democratization in Turkey.” Turkish Studies 6 (3): 361–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linz, Juan, and Stepan, Alfred, eds. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott, O'Donnell, Guillermo, and Samuel Valenzuela, J., eds. 1992. Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, Gül Aldikaçti. 2005. “Ideology, Progress, and Dialogue. A Comparison of Feminist and Islamist Women's Approaches to the Issues of Head Covering and Work in Turkey.” Gender and Society 19 (1): 104–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moghadam, Valentine. 2003. “Engendering Citizenship, Feminizing Civil Society: The Case of the Middle East and North Africa.” Women & Politics 25 (1/2): 63–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müftüler-Baç, Meltem. 2005. “Turkey's Political Reforms: The Impact of The European Union.” South European Society & Politics 10 (1): 17–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe C., and Whitehead, Lawrence, eds. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Prospects for Democracy, 4 vols. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Ozcetin, Hilal. 2009. “‘Breaking the Silence’: The Religious Muslim Women's Movement in Turkey.” Journal of International Women's Studies 11 (1): 106–19.Google Scholar
Paxton, Pamela. 2000. “Women's Suffrage in the Measurement of Democracy: Problems of Operationalization.” Studies in Comparative International Development 35 (3): 92–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saktanber, Ayşe. 2002. “Whose Virtue Is This? The Virtue Party and Women in Islamist Politics in Turkey.” In Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremist around the World, ed. Bacchetta, Paolo and Power, Margaret. New York, London: Routledge: 71–83.Google Scholar
Schmitter, Phillippe C. 1993. “Some Propositions about Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy.” Institut für Höhere Studien in Vienna, Reihe Politikwissenschaft 10: 1–19.Google Scholar
Seckinelgin, Hakan. 2006. Civil Society between the State and Society: Turkish Women with Muslim Headscarves? Critical Social Policy 26 (4): 748–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuksal, Hidayet Şefkatli. 2012. “Uludere'de kürtaj yok, çocuk cesetleri var” [There is no abortion in Uludure, but the children's corpses]. Radikal, June 6, 2012. http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/uluderede_kurtaj_yok_cocuk_cesetleri_var-1090283 (accessed February 2007, 2012).Google Scholar
Turam, Berna. 2008. “Turkish Women Divided by Politics. Secularist Activism versus Pious Non-Resistance.” Internal Feminist Journal of Politics 10 (4): 475–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waylen, Georgina. 2007. Engendering Transitions. Women's Mobilization, Institutions and Gender Outcomes. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waylen, Georgina. 1994. “Women and Democratization: Conceptualizing Gender Relations in Transition Politics.” World Politics 46 (3): 327–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar