Political Islam and State Legitimacy in Turkey: The Role of National Culture in Neoliberal State-Building

International Political Sociology (2012) 6, 36–56
Political Islam and State Legitimacy

in Turkey: The Role of National Culture
in Neoliberal State-Building
Cory Blad
Manhattan College
and
Banu Koçer
Yeditepe University
The rise of Islamist parties to positions of political dominance in Turkey

has been the subject of inquiry for scholars and concern for some
American and European observers. This paper argues that this rise of
Islamist political efficacy is the result of efforts to maintain state legiti-
macy in an era of neoliberalism. The integration of neoliberalism as a
dominant political economic ideology reduces state economic regula-
tory capacities and social service endowment. The effect of this
retrenchment is a commensurate reduction in state legitimation, as
national populations view the state as unable—or unwilling—to meet
requisite economic protectionist demands that were formerly
exchanged for legitimate support. In an attempt to retain legitimate
authority, neoliberal states are forced to move beyond economic protec-
tionist strategies and embrace increasingly cultural legitimation
approaches. We juxtapose the use of economic protectionist strategies
in the 1945–1980 period with the integration of Islam as a cultural legit-
imation strategy following the 1980 coup in Turkey.
To many outside observers, Turkey is a unique country that seems perpetually

balancing on a steep precipice between kratocracy and democracy, between
Islam and capitalism, or even more melodramatically, between East and West.
This superficial and highly simplistic assumption is facilitated in no small part by
a history of military coups that appear to portray a bifurcated sociopolitical cul-
ture with military and bureaucratic elites defending a traditional, secular Kemal-
ism against a resilient and persistent Islamist challenge. These assumptions have
engendered a particular concern among some external observers due to the
steady ascendancy of Islamist-oriented political parties beginning in the mid-
1990s (see Friedman 2010:31).
The preeminence of contemporary cultural movements has become an
increasingly vital area of inquiry. However, in the context of Turkey, the
meteoric rise of Islamist political efficacy has provided a focused context for
this general question of cultural mobilization. Recent electoral successes of
stated Islamist (RP, Refah Partisi or the Welfare Party in 1994) and implied
Islamist (the currently ruling AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or the Justice
Blad, Cory and Banu Koçer. (2012) Political Islam and State Legitimacy in Turkey: The Role of National Culture in Neoliberal
State-Building. International Political Sociology, doi: 10.1111/j.1749-5687.2012.00150.x
2012 International Studies Association
Cory Blad and Banu Koçer 37
and Development Party) political parties have led many to sound alarms
about the ‘‘rising strength of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey’’ (Weymouth
1996:A15).
In reality, there is nothing new about Islamist politics in Turkey. What has
changed, however, is the contemporary efficacy of Islam as a political mobiliza-
tion strategy. Haldun Gülalp offers a particularly helpful question concerning
the contemporary, but not historical, efficacy of Islamist politics in Turkey: ‘‘Why
has a movement which has a conservative appearance and only a marginal follow-
ing in the 1970s become a political force with mass following in the 1990s? What
made the Islamist party [Refah] so popular in the 1990s?’’ (Gülalp 1999:22; see
also Eligür 2010:1–2). We argue that a political economic approach, emphasizing
strategies to maintain state legitimacy can help answer this provocative question.
This approach differs from many existing explanations for the rise of political
Islam and other culturally oriented political movements in that we deemphasize
both cultural explanations and so-called state decline arguments. Put another
way, contrary to analyses that point to political Islam as a cultural reaction to
modernity or Western imperialism and facilitated by an ever-weakening state in
the globalization era, we argue that the rise of political Islam in Turkey is tied to
strategies to bring the state more in line with neoliberal, modernist governance
and is a function of sustained state authority. This paper argues that the contem-
porary efficacy of political Islam in Turkey is due to (i) the sustained legacy of
Islamist political mobilization in the country; (ii) willful efforts on the part of
the state to integrate Islam as a means of maintaining legitimacy while simulta-
neously facilitating political economic retrenchment; and (iii) the hegemonic
dominance of neoliberal political ideology that creates space for legitimation
alternatives due to the reduced political economic legitimation strategies.
State Legitimacy and the Impact of Neoliberalism

Many explanations for the contemporary rise of political Islam are centered on
the cultural nature of the overall movement. Familiar arguments concerning the
essentialization of cultural traits and arguments concerning intrinsic culture and
behavior are common. However, most work on the cultural foundations of politi-
cal Islam emphasizes historical context and interactive political structures. There
is a propensity to characterize political Islam as a largely reactionary movement
in response to modernity or hegemonic aspects of globalization (Burgat and
Dowell 1993; Lewis 2002) or tend toward the familiar myopia of ‘‘clash of civiliza-
tion’’ arguments (see Roy 1994). The latter emphasis on intrinsic cultural traits
and civilizational incompatibilities has proven lucrative, but not helpful in
explaining any contemporary efficacy. As Gülalp’s question makes clear, contem-
porary conflicts are reflective of divergent normative conditions, yet those differ-
ences are equally preexisting and only recently have begun to propagate as what
we might term a cultural politics centered upon Islam.
Mamdani (2004) offers a more nuanced explanation in which the cultural
roots of political Islam are understood in both historical and contemporary con-
texts. His Weberian approach posits the impact of Cold War ideology as a signifi-
cant factor in the rise of Islamic politicization in opposition to leftist or
Communist movements. In the post-9 ⁄ 11 world, this tendency toward universalist
definitions has created a false impression that ‘‘political Islam’’ is synonymous
with fundamentalism, somehow reflective of deeper ‘‘civilizational’’ traits, or
even a singular political ideology. For Mamdani and others (Esposito 1994;
Haenni 2011), the ‘‘cultural’’ phenomenon of political Islam is much more the
manifestation of political processes than normative conditions.
Zubaida (2000) echoes this causal connection by pointing to the demise of
the ‘‘Islamic left’’ as a socialistic threat within the Cold War era and the shift to
38 Political Islam and State Legitimacy in Turkey
Islamism as a predictable mobilization outcome. His analysis of political Islam

emphasizes the routinization of charismatic authority and the formation of dis-
tinctive political and cultural articulations of Islam (Zubaida 2000:75). Like
Mamdani, his analysis of political routinization implies a synthetic potential
rather than a simple reactionary opposition to globalization ⁄ modernity (see also
Moaddel 2002).
While there are ideological considerations that cannot—and indeed, should
not—be ignored, such accounts overlook substantial political economic motiva-
tions that must also be included in larger causal explanations. This emphasis on
political economic conditions is usually understood as an ‘‘if ⁄ then’’ proposition
in explaining the emergence of culturally oriented movements. One of the more
influential perspectives emphasizes ‘‘state decline’’—resulting from either gener-
ally defined globalization processes or more specific neoliberal dictates—as a key
factor in the rise of sociocultural movements to fill a political power vacuum
(see Castells 2004; Desai 2006).
Haenni (2011) takes a multifaceted approach in his explanation of the rise
of political Islam, combining normative, political, and economic factors. At the
center of his analysis lies the ideological transformation within the Islamic
movement and concomitant split between traditionalists and reformists. This
transformation, which involves importing new concepts into Islam, such as
self-actualization and individual achievement, gave rise to a new, market-based
conceptualization of Islam—or ‘‘Market Islam’’ in Haenni’s terms—and led to
the ‘‘bourgeoisification and neoliberalization of Islam’’ in the 1990s. Against the
fatalistic and provincial world of the traditional Islamists, the rising, market-
friendly Islamic bourgeoisie engendered a cosmopolitan community of Muslim
entrepreneurs. In this process, political goals like jihad and the establishment of
Islamic states were replaced by individual goals of self-development, wealth, and
success in the social, economic, and political realms. Islamic civic institutions
became active agents in the neoliberal redefinition of state-civil society relations
along lines similar to the US faith-based initiatives, providing to the community
social services that would otherwise be expected from the state.
Esposito (1997) and Anderson (1997) point to deteriorating economic condi-
tions in the 1970s as heavily influencing the mobilization of Islam as a political
movement. Their analyses do not explicitly engage the concept of state decline,
but understand the emergence of a viable political alternative to existing state
institutions as central to the mobilization of political Islam. Rabasa and Larrabee
(2008) make a more explicit connection between state decline and the rise of
contemporary Turkish political Islam by pointing to the state reforms in the 1980s
as a significant factor in enabling an Islamic middle class and alluding to signifi-
cant shifts in state authority as opening opportunities for emergent Islamist polit-
ical movements. While both political and economic explanations are helpful, we
argue that neither gives a satisfactory explanation for how these integrative pro-
cesses change the state-culture nexus. We argue that while the state remains an
essential social institution, the reduction of its economic regulatory capacities
due to neoliberalization encourages a shift from economic to cultural means of
state legitimation. In the case of Turkey, Islam has long had political utility, but
in the contemporary neoliberal era it has risen to unprecedented levels, not
because Turkey is reacting against a hegemonic globalization or because the state
has ceased to play an authoritative role in Turkish society, but because it has
become a central legitimation strategy for the Turkish state to maintain legitimate
authority and more fully integrate into the neoliberal global economic system.
Central to this understanding of the state is the concept of legitimacy. Economic
growth is a fundamental responsibility of the capitalist state. As capitalism requires
a persistent level of inequality, the adverse effects of this stratification require an
institution to ameliorate negative conditions for the purpose of maintaining social
stability—for the larger purpose of maintaining positive conditions for capital

accumulation (see Lipset 1959; Cox and Schechter 2002:85–90; Lowi 2005). The
state therefore must maintain the legitimacy of capitalism while at the same time
addressing the social adversities of inequality (Przeworski 2001:67–68).
The contemporary democratic state must, at the very least, appear to meet the
demands of respective national populations for protection from the negative
effects of economic inequality in exchange for legitimate authority. Many schol-
ars tie this process of state legitimation directly to economic processes; or more
specifically, the capacity of state institutions to meet national economic protection-
ist demands. Thus, the primary legitimation strategy for state institutions is to
protect national populations through economic means (O’Connor 1973; Habermas
1975; Beetham 1991). The purpose of the state goes beyond simple promotion
of capital accumulation; it must also maintain stable social conditions at the
national level for capitalism to function effectively. This logic is reflected in Key-
nesian economic theory and defined the embedded liberalism of the Bretton
Woods era (see Ruggie 1982; Blyth 2002).
This ‘‘class compromise’’ began to unravel in the 1970s as neoliberalism
emerged to challenge the then-ubiquitous embedded liberal model. The goal
was to shift from the state promotion of socioeconomic protectionism to an
emphasis on initiatives to facilitate privatization of public expenditures, deregula-
tion, and large-scale decreases in targeted—read: social services—government
spending. Neoliberalism requires the reduction of state authority in several areas:
as a regulatory mechanism, as a provider of public services, and as a manager of
economic enterprise. In sum, the role of the state as an economic protectionist
institution is irreconcilable with neoliberal ideology that champions unrestrained
liberal capitalism. The overall effect was a large-scale effort to reduce the capacity
of advanced capitalist states to regulate capital accumulation and state economic
protectionist capacity (Peck and Tickell 1994; Jessop 2002). According to Haber-
mas (2001:79): ‘‘As markets drive out politics, the nation-state increasingly loses
its capacities to raise taxes and stimulate growth, and with them the ability to
secure the essential foundations of its own legitimacy.’’
So the primary question here becomes: How is state legitimacy maintained in
a neoliberal era when the economic protectionist capacity of the state is reduced,
significantly in many cases? We argue that the ascendancy of neoliberalism and
the subsequent challenge of states to meet protectionist demands through
economic means have prompted state institutions to integrate local cultural
means to maintain legitimate authority. Put another way, neoliberalism pressures
states to abandon a traditional means of maintaining legitimacy, while still
requiring state authority to maintain social stability (see Barrow 2005). The result
has been a precipitous rise in the efficacy of cultural politics (see Piven 1995;
Alvarez, Dagnino, and Escobar 1998; Hall 2000).
For many, the acceleration of neoliberal hegemony has had a corrosive effect
on the state that creates a political opportunity for movements arguing they, not
the state, can meet national protectionist demands in a more effective manner
(see Habermas 2001; Castells 2004). From this perspective, the tendency is to
emphasize the emergence of national movements and ignore any sustained role
of the state. We argue that this causal conclusion is premature and as a result
enables such analyses to ignore the sustained role of state institutions. The state
continues to be the most effective institution to maintain social stability and is,
ironically, essential to the survival of neoliberalism. The work of George Yúdice
offers considerable support for this position.
Yúdice clearly links the impact of neoliberalism to state decline and the subse-
quent rise of local cultural mobilization as a means to address contemporary
socioeconomic problems. However, he does not simply dismiss the sustained role
of respective states. He points to a specific aspect of state decline, the reduction
of state capacity to ‘‘shield citizens from the ups and downs of the world
market’’ as being a particularly important state responsibility made ineffective as
a result of neoliberal global integration (Yúdice 2003:94). The question here is
not with decline in toto, but rather to focus on specifying the form of such
decline and its impact on the relationship between state institutions and national
populations. Thus, for Yúdice, the impact of state decline is important, but only
to the extent that it influences the state ⁄ nation dynamic.
It is this state ⁄ nation dynamic that informs the following comparison of
Turkish state legitimation in the embedded liberal and neoliberal periods. We
first examine the role of economic protectionism in Turkey in the post-war
period, during the dominance of Kemalist, state-centered development strategies.
The connection between state legitimation and the economic functions of the
state will be of particular interest. We then shift to an examination of how
neoliberal reforms begun in 1980 have reduced the economic protectionist
capacities of the Turkish state. The integration of Islam as an alternative
legitimation strategy takes center stage here followed by a brief examination of
the unintended—but in retrospect, seemingly inevitable—consequences of the
integration of cultural legitimation strategies. The paper concludes with an
illustration of the role neoliberalism plays in empowering cultural politics and
the inexorable and sustained role of the state in this process of acquiescing to
global political economic ideology.
The Turkish State: Economic Protectionism, Secularism, and

Islamic Legitimation
Built on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I,
modern Turkey was established in 1923 as a republican parliamentary democracy
under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal. The emergent Turkish leadership
adopted secular laws to replace the traditional religious fiats of Ottoman legacy
and made efforts to restructure political and social institutions along the Western
nation-state model. These reforms reflected a strong desire to address a per-
ceived lack of modernization in political economic affairs as well as to realign
Turkey with a Western development trajectory.
Modernization efforts were driven by both a massive debt inheritance and fis-
cal deficit from the Ottoman Empire, and an economic structure ill-equipped to
resolve these fiscal problems. With industrial manufacturing comprising only
10% of the GNP, the vast majority of Turkish economic activity lay in local agri-
cultural production that was limited by traditional methods and low productivity
(Hale 1981). In the ethnically diverse structure of the Ottoman Empire, top posi-
tions in the bureaucracy and the military were held by the Turkish elite, whereas
manufacturing industry, business, and commerce mostly constituted the domin-
ion of Armenian, Greek, and Jewish minorities. Due to forced deportations dur-
ing World War I and the mass emigrations effected by the War of
Independence, there had been a drastic drop in the minority population. Thus,
since its inception, the Turkish state was required to play a major role in the eco-
nomic sphere as a major entrepreneur.
For the theorists of the Kemalist regime, etatism—capital accumulation by a
strong and impartial state that would avoid class conflict, protecting the interests
of all social classes brought together under national solidarity—was a third way,
offering a preferable alternative to both capitalism and socialism (Karpat 1959;
Hale 1981; Ahmad 1993). One of the primary features of this orientation was the
understanding that the state should manage and regulate economic sectors for
the purpose of growth (Herschlag 1984; Keser 1993). Thus, the Turkish state
undertook several initiatives to promote industrialization and the ‘‘moderniza-
tion’’ of several economic sectors including manufacturing, natural resource
extraction, and agriculture. National financial institutions were established to

facilitate and manage foreign private capital investment.
When the global economic depression of the 1930s significantly limited the
efficacy of private capital investment, the Turkish state expanded its authoritative
capacity, and—as a key lender to private capital interests—assumed majority con-
trol over several critical sectors to maintain economic modernization.
The dominance of etatism was challenged first by the economic downturn
resulting from World War II and later in the 1950s with the ascendancy of liberal
capitalist ideology, particularly after the inaugural multi-party elections of 1950.
The opposition Democrat Party (Demokrat Partisi, DP) won a substantial
majority and attempted to implement a number of policies designed to weaken
the etatist legacy of the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk
Partisi, CHP). The founding of the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey in
1950, for instance, was heralded as the ‘‘first’’ private capital investment institution
in Turkey (see Diamond 1950).
Liberalization initiatives were primarily economic—reducing state expenditures
and direct management—but the DP also worked to reduce Kemalist restrictions
on Islamic practices and enhance the public role of minority groups including
Kurds. However, it would be a mistake to simply attribute the so-called liberaliza-
tion of the Turkish state to the election of the DP. The preceding CHP govern-
ment actually initiated many of these liberal reforms—in both cultural and
economic senses—such as allowing calls to prayer in Arabic (1947) and signing
off on the Industrial Development Bank (see Karpat 1972; Zürcher 2004). This is
important to note, as it illustrates the importance of larger structural influences
on the Turkish state. The emergence of a Western consensus on limited liberaliza-
tion initiatives—emblematic of the GATT negotiations begun in 1947—provided
significant incentive to developing states seeking increased foreign investment.
While one of the primary goals of the DP during the 1950s was to increase foreign
investment, it would be erroneous to assume that the shift in capitalist ideology
toward liberalization was an exclusive function of national politics.
In fact, the CHP’s subtle move away from etatism and the DP’s liberal rhetoric
was welcomed by the United States, which subsequently facilitated an increase in
Marshall Plan funds in the early 1950s, and Turkey’s 1952 inclusion into NATO
(Karpat 1972:353). However, the actual implementation of any liberal reforms
was highly problematic due to the paucity of private capital and a continual need
to expand state management and lending institutions. This is an important
point: The role of the Turkish state as an institution of economic management
continued to expand despite liberalization efforts of the ruling DP. This is why
Western observers remained skeptical about the actual implementation of liberal-
ization measures by the DP. Kerwin (1951:25) observed that ‘‘...few tangible
actions have been taken although the Government has declared its intention to
not build any more factories.’’ Actually, the DP government contributed more to
state-led development than its liberal rhetoric would admit. Rural infrastructure
improvements, agricultural modernization, and industrial development—cement,
coal, minerals, and petroleum, to name but a few—were all relatively successful
public economic initiatives under the supposedly liberal DP.
By 1960, the combination of an exploding trade deficit and an overextension
of public debt substantially weakened the DP and exacerbated social and politi-
cal conflicts (Bayar 1996). On May 27, 1960, the military assumed control over
state activities for the purpose of regaining social stability and enacting fiscal
reforms that would counter both rising inflation, ballooning trade deficits, and
public debt. This was to be achieved through a rejection of extensive economic
liberalization—widely blamed for the economic crises at the end of the
1950s—and an embrace of the state, once again, as a regulator of private
economic activity.
The first of two Five-Year Plans (1963–1967) focused on developing private

capital interests through regulation and central state planning. One of the suc-
cesses of the DP regime was the emergence of an industrial elite in and around
Istanbul—this class would be instrumental as state planning shifted to a model
of import substitution industrialization (ISI) to expand domestic manufacturing
and reduce Turkish dependence on foreign imports. The primary goal was to
promote increases in domestic production, which would both promote increased
consumption and decrease import dependency (see Maxfield and Nolt 1990;
Öniş 1992).
The economic strategies of the state proved successful in the short term with
controlled inflation encouraging consumption and public investment in indus-
trial manufacturing expanding domestic production. The state also continued its
social spending initiatives with sustained infrastructure improvements and
increases in education and health-care expenditures (Hale 1981; Shambayati
1994). These successes were episodic as the same foreign debt constraints that
hampered the DP government in the 1950s returned to wreak havoc on the ISI
model. The Turkish state became increasingly dependent on foreign capital to
procure manufacturing equipment and materials as well as for liquid capital to
finance ISI initiatives. This over-dependence on foreign investment and a sus-
tained trade deficit led the state to devalue the lira in 1970, which decreased the
purchasing power of the average Turkish citizen and exacerbated the effects of
inflation.
The devaluation of the lira in 1970 had two effects. The first was to pacify for-
eign investors and satisfy global market demands by making Turkish exports
cheaper and attracting foreign investment in export-oriented industries (see
Bayar 1996:777–778). Obviously, those in a position to profit from increased for-
eign investment and export sales, specifically the urban industrial class and state
bureaucrats, did so (see Yalpat 1984). The second effect of the 1970 currency
devaluation was that it depressed national consumption by reducing the purchas-
ing power of the lira and making consumption more expensive. Wages were
reduced in real terms overnight, and the consumption capacity of ordinary Turk-
ish citizens was significantly reduced (see Ahmad 1981). This reduction in the
economic protectionist capacity of the state cannot be discounted as a significant
motivation for social unrest and conflict (see Ahmad 1993:146–150; Hale 1994).
Put simply, the inability of the state to meet national economic protectionist
demands—as it had through most of the 1960s—led to a violent withdrawal of
legitimacy by several sectors of the Turkish population, which then prompted
the military to re-establish systemic stability.
Although Islamists had been active in politics under the roof of center-right
parties since 1950s, it was in 1970 that they entered the political stage as an inde-
pendent actor with the establishment of the National Order Party (Milli Nizam
Partisi, MNP) under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan. The MNP lasted only
a year as it was banned by the military following the second Turkish military
coup on March 12, 1971, after increasingly challenging the Kemalist context of
the Turkish state (Ahmad 1993:146–149).
It is tempting to point to the rise of the MNP and the increasingly public and
vociferous nature of the Islamist political movement during this period as a pri-
mary causal factor motivating the coup. The danger, of course, is attributing a
monocausal efficacy to the MNP in this context. Rather, we would point out the
deteriorating economic context and the decreasing ability of the state to main-
tain economic protections as a facilitating mechanism that allowed the MNP a
political opportunity. The military was, of course, concerned with the ideological
challenge of the MNP and Islamist politics, but the primary concern was to stabi-
lize major urban areas and ensure positive conditions for sustained economic
growth.
In this context, the 1971 coup is less essential than the relationship between
the state and national populations. The Turkish state, whether etatist or
promoting some form of embedded liberalism, has long served in an
institutional role as economic protector of the Turkish population. If we under-
stand the ISI regime of 1960–1980 as emblematic of this role, it is possible to
understand the inflation management and consumption promotion initiatives of
the state as a means to meet national protectionist demands through economic
means.
The remainder of the 1970s saw a combination of inflation, economic crises,
social unrest, and periodic martial law. In particular, the problem of inflation
aggravated social tensions as the rate, once held by the state at approximately 5%
in the 1960s, raised from 17% in 1976 to more than 110% by 1980 (Kibritçioğlu
2004:89–90; see also Yalpat 1984). Conditions of social disorder and conflict that
were supposed to have been eradicated by the 1971 coup were sustained by a
combination of economic and political instability.
Anticipating a probable military intervention, the government passed the
so-called January 24 Decisions in 1980. This package of IMF-sanctioned austerity
measures was based on transforming the economy by encouraging exports and
curbing public spending. Devoted to both short-term stabilization and long-term
structural adjustment, the program included measures such as opening the
Turkish economy to international markets, reducing the state’s role in the
economy, adhering to IMF-prescribed exchange rate and monetary policies,
reducing subsidies and price controls, and encouraging exports and foreign
direct investment (Öniş 2003:6).
Turgut Özal, the principal economic advisor of and undersecretary to the
Prime Minister, devised the January 24 Decisions. Özal had worked for the World
Bank in the early 1970s and was a fervent proponent of the IMF-patented pana-
cea for economic recovery in Turkey. An experienced technocrat, Özal was aware
of the difficulty in implementing this stability package within the limitations of
ordinary party politics due to the potential cataclysmic social consequences of
the proposed austerity measures.
At this stage two powerful forces emerged to support Özal: Western states and
the Turkish military. Turkey was viewed as an essential Western ally in the Cold
War, and the potential destabilization of the country was strategically unaccept-
able. Several OECD countries provided immediate economic aid packages in sup-
port of Özal’s efforts. Securing the necessary political stability for the full
implementation of the IMF program was the next step, which the Turkish army
took with the coup on September 12, 1980. Besides its immediate outcome of
putting an end to political violence, the 1980 coup had the effect of providing
‘‘the period of tranquility Özal was seeking, marked by an absence of politics
and dissent in all forms’’ (Ahmad 1993:179).
Neoliberalism and the Rise of Islamic Politics

From 1980 until 1983, Turkey was ruled directly through the omnipotent
National Security Council (NSC) comprised of the chief of the general staff
and the chief commanders of the armed forces. The NSC restored stability in a
totalitarian fashion by proscribing political action in the country. Political parties
were dissolved and many former politicians banned from politics; trade union
movements were smashed; a Higher Education Council was established to over-
see universities, including personnel and curriculum; a similar regulatory body
was formed to rein the content of all broadcast media. The NSC maintained dis-
cretionary power over virtually everything from energy policies, foreign affairs,
and military issues to the structure of civil and political rights (Ahmad 1993:13;
Keyder 2004:66).
Under the protection of the NSC, the economy was radically restructured in
accordance with neoliberal ideology. Manufacturing employment in the public
sector decreased due to privatization and downsizing. Agricultural subsidies were
reduced. There was a marked change in the pattern of income distribution in
favor of the upper class as the share of wages and salaries in the GNP plum-
meted from 36% in 1977 to 18% in 1987 (Ahmad 1993:205). With the increase
in the number of small enterprises, the growth of the service sector and the
spread of subcontracting, unionized labor force declined (Gülalp 2001; Keyder
2004). On the positive side, the adoption of export-oriented growth strategy
resulted in an unprecedented upsurge in exports from $3 billion in 1980 to $13
billion in 1990 (Keyder 2004:68), which, to a large extent, owed to the increase
in manufactured exports, especially textiles.
After a decade of rapid economic growth, the economy began to worsen in
the late 1980s. This decline was largely due to the failure of the government to
contain severe distributional pressures, which had been highly repressed under
the military regime. Economic growth was restored with the liberalization of the
capital account and the establishment of full convertibility of the Turkish Lira in
1989. However, premature financial and account liberalization prior to the estab-
lishment of a stable macroeconomic environment and a strong regulatory frame-
work for the banking sector resulted in the resurgent economic problem of ‘‘a
pattern of a highly fragile debt-led growth which was heavily dependent on
domestic borrowing to finance the large fiscal deficit and inflows of short-term
capital’’ (Öniş 2003a:25).
It is here that we must resume our discussion of legitimacy and the Turkish
state. The Turkish state was, historically, an economic protectionist institution
that met capitalist demands through the protection of national markets and the
provision of financial capital and institutional infrastructure. Similarly, the state
met national popular protectionist demands through economic means by manag-
ing inflation and providing access to social services such as education and health-
care. Despite inevitable fluctuations and failures, the Turkish state ensured
sustained legitimate authority through the management of national economic
interests and the provision of demanded services. In periods of economic tur-
moil, such as the 1970s, the legitimate authority of the state was increasingly
challenged or explicitly withdrawn. This loss of authority is explicitly tied to the
perceived inability of the state to meet economic protectionist expectations of
the Turkish population.
The onset of neoliberalization in 1980 posed a particular problem for Özal
and the military junta: How to resume democratic governance while eviscerat-
ing the economic protectionist role of the state at the same time? Put another
way, how could the state ensure legitimacy without the primary strategy tradi-
tionally utilized for this end? We argue that the solution to this problem of
legitimation was found in the strategic integration of Islamist rhetoric and insti-
tutions following the neoliberalization of the Turkish state and economy begin-
ning in 1980.
As previously noted, the existence of Islamic politics in Turkey dates back to the
founding of the Republic. The emergence of the National Order Party (MNP) in
1970 was a direct challenge to the secular authority of the Kemalist state, which
subsequently banned the party in 1971. A resulting succession of Islamist
parties—the MSP (1971–1980), the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP, 1983–1998),
the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi, FP, 1997–2001), the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi,
SP, 2001-Present), and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma
Partisi, AKP, 2001-Present)—represents the sustained presence of Islamist politics
in the country (see Narlı 1999). Obviously, one cannot simply attribute the
emergence of Islamist political legitimacy to the development of neoliberalism.
However, following the 1980 coup and the autocratic imposition of neoliberal
reforms, the role of Islamist politics moved from an institutional articulation of

opposition to an efficacious means of legitimation for the Turkish state.
Political Islam and State Legitimation: Manifest Strategies

The Özal-military leadership recognized the danger of simply removing the eco-
nomic protectionist mechanisms that had been exclusive domain of the state.
The effect of a sudden decline in economic protectionist capacity was on display
during the violent 1970s, in which a de-legitimized state was unable to restore
stability. This scenario exemplifies the conflict for neoliberal reformers: Capital
accumulation and expansion require social stability; stability is traditionally main-
tained by legitimate state institutions; yet a primary source for said legitimacy,
economic protectionism, is antithetical to the neoliberal project of market
emancipation.
The neoliberal Turkish state clearly required authority to maintain stability if
its economic reforms were to have any efficacy. However, it also needed to
remove the state from its position of protectionist authority. The solution was an
integration of cultural—that is, Islamist—legitimation strategies in two exemplary
areas. The first was the Islamization of Turkish labor through the state advocacy
of cultural, rather than the traditional class-based, trade union organizations.
The second was the reduction of state-managed social service provision and the
privatization of these services under Islamist patronage.
The decline of labor and other class-oriented movements in Turkey was moti-
vated by two factors. The first was an elite assumption that social unrest and
violence, rife in the 1970s, was the result of class conflict and fanned by tradi-
tional union activists. The second assumption was derived from the very nature
of neoliberalism itself—in order to reduce state regulatory capacity and
empower private capital interests it became necessary to reduce the power of
trade unionism. The latter assumption was particularly synthetic as traditional
state strategies—such as ISI—relied on the patronage and subsequent support
from class-oriented trade unions. In sum, the attack on class-oriented union
organization was an effort to reduce the power of a strong etatist constituency.
One particularly effective strategy to meet these complementary goals was to
promote culture rather than class as a means of maintaining labor solidarity.
The Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Hak-iş) was established in
1976 as an organization designed to promote union collaboration within the cul-
tural context of Islam (see Duran and Yıldırım 2005; Smith 2005). In fact, Hak-iş
was created in close collaboration with the MSP and served as a labor-oriented
initiative to link the political Islamism of the National Salvation Party with
economic development initiatives. Hak-iş was distinct in its reliance on cultural
(Islamic) organizational foundations, as opposed to the class-orientation of
traditional union organizations: ‘‘The basic tenet of Hak-iş was the principle of
the commonality of employer and employee interests on the basis of Muslim
brotherhood. Hak-iş declared that conflict between labour and capital was
artificial…’’ (Duran and Yıldırım 2005:232).
Despite the military’s aversion to Islamic politics and its banning of the MSP
following the 1980 coup, it became clear that neoliberal reforms could not be
expedited while traditional unions remained strong. The military junta found
an existing alternative and began to actively shift state support to Hak-iş.
Specifically, Hak-iş was the only labor organization authorized to function in
military industries and was emblematic of larger military support for ‘‘Islamic
businesses’’ (Çam 2007:32). The expansion of Hak-iş with respect to member-
ship and contemporary influence is due almost exclusively to military sponsor-
ship in the early 1980s.
While Hak-iş is not the largest labor organization in Turkey—Türk-iş and

DiSK, both center-left, class-oriented unions, are larger with respect to overall
membership—it is the only one that articulates an explicitly Islamist orientation
(see Nichols, Suğur, and Demir 2002:25). Military patronage of Hak-iş is curious
given the long-standing hostility of the military to Islamist political organizations
and the fact that Hak-iş represented only a small number of Turkish labor
unions. This superficial contradiction becomes eminently comprehensible once
neoliberal reforms are taken into account. Subverting the power of the tradi-
tional state-labor dichotomy facilitated the rise of private capital interests and
weakened state authoritative capacity in accordance with neoliberal demands
(see also Cizre-Sakallıoğlu and Yeldan 2000:500). More to the point, the macro-
economic shift away from the ISI model ushered in a renewed emphasis on
exports. Interestingly, these export-oriented entities were dominated by Islamist
enterprises that existed within the traditional manufacturing strongholds of istan-
bul and izmir, but also in smaller, rural towns of Anatolia outside the traditional
centers of Turkish production—known as the ‘‘Anadolu Kaplanları’’ or Anato-
lian Tigers (see Öniş 1997:758–759).
These so-called Islamic businesses regularly share membership in MÜSiAD
(Müstakil Sanayici ve iş Adamları Derneg˘i), an Islamic trade organization, and are
commonly characterized by their export-orientation, their dispersal through Tur-
key—not simply confined to traditional urban centers of industrial manufactur-
ing—and an ambivalent attitude toward European integration (see Öniş 1997;
Narlı 1999; Yavuz 1999; Cizre-Sakallıoğlu and Yeldan 2000). MÜSiAD, formed in
1990, is the organizational manifestation of a process facilitated in the 1980s by
the Özal ⁄ military alliance. One of the primary components of neoliberal eco-
nomic development initiatives is an effort to end the ISI and replace it with an
export-oriented model (see Williamson 1990; Harvey 2005). The promotion of
export-oriented manufacturing coincided with the experience of many future
MÜSiAD members who had been excluded from ISI initiatives. The Özal reforms
were able to reduce the efficacy of the ISI regime, weaken the political power of
TÜSiAD—a state-centered manufacturing organization comprised mainly of ISI
producers in istanbul—and promote an alternative. As the Turkish state
embraced this neoliberal development model, state subsidies and IMF funds
were directed to many of these ‘‘Islamic businesses’’ that were more structurally
consistent with neoliberal export goals (Yeldan 2006:196; Çam 2007:35).
Clearly, the goal of neoliberalization in Turkey was accompanied by an inten-
tional integration of Islamic cultural norms as a means to weaken state protec-
tionist institutions and partnerships, such as the state-union bloc. On a second
front, other neoliberal initiatives based on the integration of Islam served com-
plementary political economic goals, albeit in a less direct fashion. The case of
public education provides a telling example of this process.
Neoliberal demands to reduce public educational expenditures threatened a
highly valued public service, potentially threatening state legitimacy, which threa-
tened the overall neoliberalization project (see Yavuz 1997, 2003). The solution
was found in official support for Islamic private schools and imam education as a
means to maintain services, although through private means. Many of these
schools were funded by foreign (primarily Saudi) capital (Akşit 1991; Çam
2007). This was part of a larger initiative to reduce public educational expendi-
tures, and provided a useful means to meet the popular demands for educa-
tional institutions while at the same time absolving the state of financial
responsibility for their operation (see Gök 2002). Tuğal (2009) also points to the
‘‘Islamization’’ of many social service sectors during the early 1980s as occurring
within the larger context of neoliberalization initiatives undertaken by the Turk-
ish state. All in all, the Turkish state used the official promotion of Islam as a
means to meet national protectionist demands, and at the same time reduced its
own effective role in responding to those demands. Ironically, this solution to

the legitimation crisis was found in the nineteenth century ideology of the
‘‘Turkish-Islamic Synthesis’’ (see Çetinsaya 1999; Kaplan 2002).
The structural shifts of the 1980s were augmented by state efforts to expand the
normative inclusion of Islam as a central feature of Turkish national identity,
which culminated in the formulation of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis as the new
state ideology, replacing the republican ethos of radical secularism. According to
the proponents of the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis, the goal for the Turkish society to
prosper in unity and solidarity was to be achieved by the promotion of a ‘‘national
culture,’’ which combined Islam’s role as a unifying force between various
socioeconomic classes with the moral tenets of Turkish culture, such as the love of
country, sanctity of the family and the military, and obedience to state authority.
Moreover, the new ideology was not to be restricted to the sociocultural realm
alone, but encompass the economic domain. Taking as their model of success
the Japanese modernization experience, based on the combination of traditional
religious values with a free market economy, the ideologues of the Turkish-
Islamic Synthesis identified spiritual reawakening as the necessary condition for
economic growth. On this path of development, Islam was expected ‘‘to play a
significant role in minimizing the social conflicts that might ensue as a result of
rapid industrialization and fierce competition in the market’’ (Toprak 1990:13).
Mango (1990:20) also recognized this incorporation of Islam into the country’s
neoliberal course of economic development:
Turgut Özal has also disturbed strict secularists by appealing to religion for prac-
tical political purposes, as when the Prime Minister declared that the Prophet
Muhammad had refused to fix prices in Medina, and was, therefore, a supporter
of the free market.
Identifying the key initiatives undertaken by the military leadership to mitigate

the power of labor organization, Cihan Tuğal (2009:40) illustrates the military
promotion of Islamist education initiatives, Islamic community protection, and
the first constitutional reference to Islam as a national characteristic. Atasoy
(2003:139) ties these developments even more explicitly to global trends and
conditions:
Islamic ideology is fundamentally shaped by political choices made by state man-

agers and political elites in response to domestic and international political and
economic pressures. After all, following the 1980 military coup, it was the deci-
sion of civilian and military bureaucrats to restructure state organs and institu-
tionalize neoliberal policies in Turkey while promoting Islam as a panacea to
contain the Left.
Neoliberal Hegemony and Islamist Legitimation: Latent Effects

While the military worked to integrate Islam into the process of social service
provision and labor organization, it may not have anticipated the long-term
implications for this legitimation strategy. In fact, the increased privatization of
education and social services may certainly have met neoliberal demands by
reducing state expenditures and regulatory capacities, but it also had the supple-
mentary effect of shifting legitimacy from secular to cultural institutions. As neo-
liberal reforms expanded, so did the provisions of private, religious education,
and social services. This trend combined with large-scale urbanization in the
post-1980 era—more than 70% urban growth by some estimates (see Gülalp
2001:441)—to create conditions of large urban populations, exacerbated income
inequality, and a need for social services that only Islamic institutions seemed to
be providing. In this context, the ‘‘Islamization’’ of impoverished urban
communities is explicitly tied to neoliberal reforms (Öniş 1997; Cizre-Sakallıoğlu

and Yeldan 2000; Keyder 2004; Tuğal 2009).
The confluence of social service privatization, promotion of cultural, rather
than class-based labor organization, and the facilitation of Islamist-dominated
export manufacturing defined state-led reforms in the 1980s. There is little
doubt that these strategies facilitated neoliberalism in Turkey; however, they also
worked to create a constituency based on cultural affinity rather than state eco-
nomic protectionist capacity. Put simply, the neoliberalization of the Turkish
state was accompanied by the legitimation of Islamic politics—a dramatic change
from the ardent secularism of the Kemalist tradition. Neoliberal reforms
required the retrenchment of state expenditures and the removal of both class-
based labor and state-sponsored ISI regimes. All of these requirements were met,
at least in part through the integration of Islam into state protectionist policies.
In retrospect, it seems inevitable that state support for Islamist institutions and
normative social inclusion would embolden a long-managed constituency. How-
ever, the Turkish state was left in a relatively difficult position. While providing
state support for Islamic socioeconomic initiatives effectively allowed the state to
reduce expenditures in accordance with neoliberal demands as well as inhibit
the political efficacy of state-supported labor and ISI regimes, the military leader-
ship and Özal-led Motherland Party (1983–1991) did not anticipate the extent to
which these efforts would engender a strong Islamic political base in Turkey.
The latent construction of this Islamist constituency culminated in the 1994 local
mayoral elections and the 1995 national elections.
By now the story of the Welfare Party’s (Refah Partisi) ascendancy in the 1994
local and 1995 general elections, their formation of a minority government in
1996, removal by military memorandum in 1997, and banning by the Constitu-
tional Court in 1998 is well known (see Kamrava 1998; Meyer 1998; Salt 1999;
Gülalp 2001); so too is the story of the rise of the currently governing AKP and
their dominance of Turkish politics beginning in 2002 and continuing through
the most recent elections in 2011 (see Özbudun 2006; Yavuz 2006; Öniş 2007).
The rise of Islamic party participation in local and national elections since the
1990s is readily apparent as shown in Figures 1 and 2.1
3500
3000
2500
2000 Number of Secular

Mayors
1500
Number of Islamist
1000 Mayors
500
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
FIG. 1. Local Mayoral Election Results, 1960–2009
1
These data were compiled by the authors using electoral results from the Turkish Statistical Institute http://
www.turkstat.gov.tr/VeriBilgi.do?tb_id=42&ust_id=12 and Yerel Yönetimler Portalı http://www.yerelnet.org.tr/
basvuru_kaynaklari/secim_sonuclari/index.php.
500 1980 Coup 1997 Military

Memorandum
450
400
Number of MPs 350
Number of
300 Secular MPs
250
200
150 Number of
Islamist MPs
100
50
0
1973 1977 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2002 2007
Year
FIG. 2. National Parliamentary Elections, 1973–2007
The role of both the 1980 and 1997 coups in temporarily reducing formal Isla-
mic party participation at a national level is apparent in Figure 2. However, the
rapid reorganization of this established cultural constituency under AKP leader-
ship in 20012 is especially important to recognize. Historically, military interven-
tion succeeded in reducing the efficacy of Islamist political parties—while
obviously unable to completely eliminate their existence—and maintaining its
authoritative role in defense of a singular state ideology, that is, Kemalism. How-
ever, the inauguration of neoliberal reforms altered the political environment by
weakening Kemalist legitimation strategies.
The reduction of this protectionist strategy, coupled with the active promotion
of cultural institutions designed to maintain services and circumvent state-
centered power relationships, did work to create a cultural constituency fully
supportive of both the Refah Partisi and AKP. Many scholars point to rural
populations, the urban poor, and MÜSiAD as key supporters of Islamic political
parties in the neoliberal era (see Öniş 1997; Yavuz 1997; Narlı 1999). As
previously stated, all of these constituencies had their demands increasingly met
through Islamic institutions.
We do not discount the creating of a political constituency as a latent effect of
the state’s neoliberal legitimation policies; however, it would be erroneous to
assume that Islamist political efficacy is solely a function of national popular
mobilization. On the contrary, the state played an active role by integrating Isla-
mic institutions and rhetoric as official mechanisms of Turkish state authority.
While the manifest efforts on the party of the Özal-military alliance are particu-
larly instructive, one more piece of indirect evidence is also helpful in illustrating
this shift to the cultural legitimation of the Turkish state: The empowerment of
this cultural constituency did not emerge in opposition to existing state policies.
The ascendancy of Islamist politics in general, and AKP in particular, has done
nothing to disrupt the neoliberalization process begun under military tutelage in
the 1980s. Thus, while the political demography of the Turkish state may have
shifted in an Islamist direction, the political economic ideology of the state has
remained remarkably stable and consistent.
As cultural legitimation strategies have become more integrated, traditional
state elites have struggled to condition the form of those cultural definitions.
The military effectively forced the resignation of Necmettin Erbakan, the Refah
prime minister, in February 1997 with the Constitutional Court banning the
2
The formation of AKP resulted from the banning of the Fazilet Partisi (FP) or Virtue Party in 2001 for its
adherence to an explicit Islamic platform. Members of the party split into traditional and reformist camps, with the
formation of the Saadet Partisi (SP) or Felicity Party representing the former and AKP representing the latter.
Refah Party completely in 1998 on the grounds that it was ‘‘undermining secular
and democratic principles’’ (Rumsford 2003:381). The ban itself is telling,
especially given the contemporary dominance of AKP and the subsequent
inability of the military or the Constitutional Court to remove AKP from power.
Ostensibly, Refah was banned as a result of its Islamist foundations and efforts
to subvert the secular norms of Kemalist state authorities. This explanation,
while essentially correct, is quite superficial for two main reasons. First, the
emphasis on Islam as a mechanism of political legitimacy is a weak causal expla-
nation given the military’s regular use of the same legitimation strategy since
1980. One could make the argument that the Refah Party was viewed as ‘‘too
Islamic’’ and forced the military to step in to maintain the dominance of a secu-
lar order. In fact, this common explanation is reinforced by many primary
accounts. One statement by General Çevik Bir is particularly supportive of this
perspective: ‘‘In Turkey we have a marriage of Islam and democracy…. The child
of this marriage is secularism. Now this child gets sick from time to time. The
Turkish Armed Forces is the doctor, which saves the child. Depending on how
sick the kid is, we administer the necessary medicine to make sure the child
recuperates’’ (Kızılyürek 2008).
Even if we are to assume that the Refah Party’s ‘‘Islamization’’ exceeded some
allegorical threshold, this does not help us understand the sustained efficacy of
Islamist politics in maintaining state authority and power given the success of
AKP since 2002. If the primary motivation for banning Refah in 1998 was that it
was ‘‘too Islamist,’’ one has to ask what this threshold is and why AKP has appar-
ently not reached it. The answer can be found in the pragmatism of AKP, and
offers a second critique of the exclusively cultural explanation for the banning
of Refah.
This second critique focuses on shifts in Islamist political strategy that corre-
sponded with the ‘‘conditioning’’ efforts of the military. For example, prior to
the 1997 coup, Islamist parties generally reflected a strong aversion to European
integration (Güneş-Ayata 2003). This position began to change with the banning
of the Refah Party in 1998. Tanıyıcı (2003) points to Refah’s demise as a
watershed moment in which subsequent electoral success was understood to be
contingent upon a shift away from this traditional Euro-skeptical position. Many
Islamist political elites recognized that a key component of acquiring state
authority was to assimilate fully into the global neoliberal orthodoxy.
The banning of Refah in 1998 motivated some members to pursue a more
integrationist platform that was centered squarely on the maintenance of neolib-
eral reforms, which included a shift to a pro-European Union position. The
reform-minded AKP coalesced under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
and Abdullah Gül, and fully embraced the neoliberalism of the contemporary
Turkish state. The electoral success of AKP following this strategic shift is illus-
trated in Tables 1 and 2.3
Unlike previous efforts to marry Islamic-oriented politics with a form of political
economic liberalism, the success of AKP reflects the influence of external ideolog-
ical structures in creating opportunities for alternative legitimation strategies.
Conclusions
The contemporary efficacy of AKP—and to a lesser extent, Refah—is due to (i)
the sustained legacy of Islamist political mobilization in Turkey; (ii) willful efforts
3
These data were compiled by the authors using electoral results from the Turkish Statistical Institute http://
www.turkstat.gov.tr/VeriBilgi.do?tb_id=42&ust_id=12, T.C. Resmi Gazete http://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/
2011/06/20110623-4.pdf, and Yerel Yönetimler Portalı http://www.yerelnet.org.tr/basvuru_kaynaklari/secim_
sonuclari/index.php.
Table 1. Post-1980 Electoral Performance of Islamist Parties—National
Number
Number of Members Percent of the
Year Party of Votes of Parliament Total Vote
1987 Welfare Party (Refah) 1717425 0 7.16

1999 Virtue Party (FP) 4805381 111 15.41
2002 Justice and Development Party (AKP) 10762131 363 34.28
AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisil; FP, Fazilet Partisi.
TABLE 2. Election Results for Islamist Parties—Local
Year Party Number of Votes Number of Mayors Percent of the Total Vote

1999 Virtue Party (FP) 4301538 488 18.4
2004 Justice and Development Party 9347949 1772 39.64
(AKP)
2009 Justice and Development Party 15257867 1442 38.99
(AKP)
AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; FP, Fazilet Partisi.
on the part of the state to integrate Islam as a means of maintaining legitimacy

while simultaneously facilitating retrenchment; and (iii) the hegemonic domi-
nance of an external political economic ideology that creates space for legitima-
tion alternatives due to the efforts to reduce state economic protectionist
capacities. Local historical and political conditions coincide with political oppor-
tunities engendered by externally integrated—or imposed—ideological structures
to facilitate cultural legitimation of state institutional authority. The first and sec-
ond of these complementary factors have been discussed in detail, but the final
factor, the role of neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology, requires further
explication.
With the integration of neoliberal reforms in 1980, the institutional ability of
the Turkish state to maintain economic protectionist policies was substantially
reduced. This, of course, did not eviscerate the Turkish state, but did reduce its
economic regulatory and social spending capacities. Standing alone, the decline
of these institutional capacities means little in a macro-social context; however, if
we understand these protectionist capacities as integral to the maintenance of
legitimate authority, then the full impact of these neoliberal reforms can be bet-
ter assessed. In Turkey, the reduction of state economic regulatory capacities cer-
tainly limited the extent to which the state could promote itself as an institution
worthy of meeting protectionist demands of its population, but the history and
very definition of the Kemalist state as a central regulator, manager, and even
actor in the national economy was under direct attack by an ideology designed
to remove states from these roles. The integration of Islam into official state
rhetoric and policy by Özal and the military junta in the early 1980s was a strate-
gic effort to reconcile the contradictory requirements of the neoliberal state—to
absolve economic protectionist capacities while retaining the legitimate authority
to maintain social order and conditions amenable for capital accumulation.
The sustained role of the state as an arbiter of order and maintaining the
potential for economic regulation and management has been a relatively conten-
tious statement, theoretically (see Hobson and Ramesh 2002). However, any
observer of the recent economic downturn must recognize the fact that states
are increasingly turned to as a ‘‘last resort’’ given the poverty of neoliberal stabil-
ity and contingency planning. So if we can understand the state to be an institu-
tion of sustained necessity, even in the neoliberal age of state decline, and if we
can understand the Islamist political movement in Turkey as one of persistent,
albeit periodically repressed, existence, it is logical to conclude that the shift to a
neoliberal governance model is the key causal factor leading to the increased
efficacy of Islamist politics in Turkey.
If we return to the experience of the Democrat Party in the 1950s, we see an
earlier attempt to facilitate the liberalization of the Turkish economy through
the withdrawal of state economic management capacities. The limited liberaliza-
tion and limited integration of Islamist politics into the DP’s, as well as the ear-
lier CHP government’s, legitimation strategy proved literally fatal to many
architects of this strategy following the 1960 coup. But if the military was so will-
ing to remove the DP and later Refah for their Islamist leanings, why have they
been unable to engage AKP in the same manner? The answer again is the con-
fluence of hegemonic ideology and state legitimation.
The DP’s limited efforts to enact liberal economic reforms coincided with the
limited liberalization of the Bretton Woods system. However, the ideological
dominance of Keynesian economic theory and the plethora of state-led develop-
ment schemes—such as ISI initiatives—ensured that the statist economic policies
inherent in the Kemalist tradition were plausible alternatives to full-scale liberal-
ization. The integration of Islam as a legitimation strategy was not necessary, as
the DP never enacted strong measures to reduce the economic protectionist role
of the state nor was there substantial, external ideological push to inaugurate
state retrenchment. There was no need for an alternative legitimation strategy,
due to the fact that the economic protectionist role of the state was not genu-
inely challenged. The demise of the DP in 1960 had as much to do with eco-
nomic recession as it did with the military’s fixation on their Islamism and
power consolidation. The DP lost popular support based primarily on its per-
ceived failure to manage economic regulatory responsibilities—tellingly, state
legitimacy was restored after the 1960 coup through the resumption of state-led
economic protectionism.
The electoral success of Refah occurred in a distinctly different hegemonic
context in which the option for expanded state economic protectionism was not
only politically daunted, but also economically discouraged through IMF loan
conditionality. By 1994, the state had successfully married neoliberal austerity
with Islamist legitimation strategies and facilitated the development of an Islam-
ist constituency. But in the context of neoliberalism, should this be a surprise?
The relaxation of restrictions on religious expression and relation to state rheto-
ric was required to facilitate Islamist social service provision, and more than a
decade of neoliberal policy reforms reduced state regulatory capacity.
While Refah’s explicit Islamism and Euroskepticism may have given the mili-
tary sufficient ‘‘cover’’ to remove Erbakan and ban the party—this conclusion
might be reinforced by the 2003 upholding of the ban by the European Court
of Human Rights—it should be noted that Refah did nothing to restrict the neo-
liberalization of Turkey. AKP has followed suit by staunchly supporting neoliber-
alism through both rhetoric and policy. A select look at several key areas of
neoliberal emphasis in the Economic Freedom Index of the Fraser Institute4
4
Turkey Economic Freedom Index—Fraser Institute, The Economic Freedom of the World Project http://
www.freetheworld.com/datasets_efw.html.
illustrates that Turkey’s neoliberalization has been remarkably consistent, regard-

less of the secularism or Islamism of the ruling party.
The advantage of Islamist parties in neoliberal Turkey is tied to their ability to
meet protectionist demands through cultural means and maintain neoliberal
market dominance. The primary handicap for secular parties is an inability to
both propose and implement state-centered economic protectionist alternatives.
As long as neoliberalism remains hegemonic, any public or regulatory protec-
tionist alternative as a means of legitimation is quite difficult—if not impossi-
ble—in an era of private capital dominance. What remains to be seen is the
long-term efficacy of this cultural legitimation alternative strategy, particularly
during periods of economic recession and depression.
Earlier this year, AKP announced the closing of a tobacco-manufacturing
facility in Ankara following the privatization and sale of TEKEL, the formerly
state-owned alcohol and tobacco monopoly. These outcomes were, of course,
in accordance with the neoliberalism of AKP, and reflect the party’s commit-
ment to privatization and limited state involvement in economic matters. The
effect of this closure was the loss of thousands of jobs, and reduced salaries and
eliminated benefits for those retained. Large-scale and durable protests—the
longest lasting 78 days—and broad public support for the workers stand in
direct opposition to AKP’s philosophy, succinctly stated by AKP MP Bülent
Gedikli: ‘‘The state’s role should be to provide basic services, and the word
‘basic’ is important here’’ (BBC 2010). Time will tell if the neoliberal project
can continue to be built on the back of culturally legitimated state authority
despite increasing economic hardships faced by those necessary for granting
that authority.
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Political Islam and State Legitimacy in Turkey: The Role of National Culture in Neoliberal State-Building

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International Political Sociology (2012) 6, 36–56

Political Islam and State Legitimacy

The rise of Islamist parties to positions of political dominance in Turkey

To many outside observers, Turkey is a unique country that seems perpetually

State Legitimacy and the Impact of Neoliberalism

Islamism as a predictable mobilization outcome. His analysis of political Islam

stability—for the larger purpose of maintaining positive conditions for capital

The Turkish State: Economic Protectionism, Secularism, and

extraction, and agriculture. National financial institutions were established to

The first of two Five-Year Plans (1963–1967) focused on developing private

Neoliberalism and the Rise of Islamic Politics

reforms, the role of Islamist politics moved from an institutional articulation of

Political Islam and State Legitimation: Manifest Strategies

While Hak-iş is not the largest labor organization in Turkey—Türk-iş and

own effective role in responding to those demands. Ironically, this solution to

Identifying the key initiatives undertaken by the military leadership to mitigate

Islamic ideology is fundamentally shaped by political choices made by state man-

Neoliberal Hegemony and Islamist Legitimation: Latent Effects

communities is explicitly tied to neoliberal reforms (Öniş 1997; Cizre-Sakallıoğlu

2000 Number of Secular

FIG. 1. Local Mayoral Election Results, 1960–2009

500 1980 Coup 1997 Military

FIG. 2. National Parliamentary Elections, 1973–2007

Table 1. Post-1980 Electoral Performance of Islamist Parties—National

1987 Welfare Party (Refah) 1717425 0 7.16

AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisil; FP, Fazilet Partisi.

TABLE 2. Election Results for Islamist Parties—Local

1984 Welfare Party (Refah) 374577 16 3.75

AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; FP, Fazilet Partisi.

on the part of the state to integrate Islam as a means of maintaining legitimacy

illustrates that Turkey’s neoliberalization has been remarkably consistent, regard-

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