Rethinking Islam and Liberal Democracy: Islamist Women in Turkish Politics

Extract

Rethinking Islam and Liberal Democracy: Islamist Women in Turkish Politics. By Yesim Arat. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 150p. $55.00.

Since the advent of competitive politics in Turkey in 1946, Islamist parties have assumed increasing importance. During the 1970s, the National Salvation Party, headed by Necmettin Erbakan, was a participant in a series of coalition governments. The Welfare Party, also led by Erbakan, came in first (barely) in the 1995 election, catapulting its temperamental leader into the position of prime minister. In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (JDP) won an overwhelming electoral victory, capturing two-thirds of the parliamentary seats. Although the JDP denies that it is an Islamist party, its leader, the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been a leading Islamist politician, including especially his stormy career as mayor of Istanbul, and both its supporters and opponents regard it as such today. The result of this dramatic rise of Islamist political forces in the formally and solidly secular Republic of Turkey has aroused a great deal of controversy. Not least of the questions raised is the popular conundrum of the compatibility of Islam and democracy.