Congrès Mondial des Études sur le Moyen-Orient et l'Afrique du Nord

Barcelone du 19 au 24 Juillet 2010

· Langue: English

· Description: Paper discussant: Sinem Gurbey (PhD Candidate, Columbia University)

Paper presenter: Irfan Haslak (Assist.Prof., Sakarya University, Turkey), “The Role of Civil Societies In Democratisation of Turkey: The Case of Association for Liberal Thinking”.
Turkey has witnessing a transformation in political, economic and social spheres since mid-1980's. Behind this transformation there is a change of attitude towards the state, society and economy. The concrete results of this change can be observed with the political and economic reforms of the Özal governments in the 1980’s. Liberalisation of economy seems to be of great importance as this led to modernisation in social lives of the people. Although 1990?s were gloomy years for the Turkish democracy, starting from 1999 when European Union at Helsinki Summit recognised Turkey as a candidate for the membership heralded a positive change for the Turkish democracy. To get a date for negotiations for the membership together with the encouragement of some of the civil society organisations, various governments launched an intensive reform programmes starting from 2001.One of the consequences of this process is that Turkey is more democratic and liberal than before. The second is that a discussion has arisen in academic circles whether the experience of Justice and Development Party with an Islamic leaning, which has been in power in Turkey since 2002 and which has played a leading role concerning the reform programmes, would have any implications for democracy in Middle Eastern countries, or not. Association for Liberal Thinking as a civil society organisation seems to have been an integral part of this transformation, because upon its establishment in1992 the Association made a lot of effort to spread liberal thought among Turkish society. Although some segments of the society felt resentful against it and its activities, the Association with its academic journal, Journal of Liberal Thought, and with symposiums and conferences, helped greatly to open up the way for a more liberal democratic society. And this influence can be seen in the reform programmes of the governments in the last decade. The aim of this paper is to look at and evaluate the ‘unique’ role of the Association of Liberal Thinking in democratisation and liberalisation of Turkey by looking at the academic and other activities of the Association. Content analysis will be employed in analyzing some of the articles of the Journal and final reports of the conferences held by the Association.

Paper presenter: Halil Ibrahim Aydinli (Assoc.Prof.Dr. -Sakarya Universty, Turkey), “An assessment of the activities of civil societies in Turkey regarding environment in the process of the EU negotiations: civil iniciatives against hydroelectric power stations association”.
It is inevitable that more attention be given to environment in a period when environmental disasters and especially global warming have gained momentum. States have set aside their differences on ideology, and have felt the necessity to take responsibility with a global understanding towards environmental issues. Environmental activities at international and global level from Stockholm to Copenhagen are a good demonstration of this. The characteristics of responsible actors in environmental approaches have started to change and a new process evolving from governments to civil society institutions and individuals have started. At that point, civil society institutions have assumed an important role in the protection and improvement of the environment. Non-Governmental Organizations such as World Foundation of the Protection of Nature (WWF), Greenpeace, and Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) are some of the basic dynamics of environmental activities worldwide. There’s an important number of civil society institutions on environment in Turkey as well as central and local organizations of public administration. Association of the Protection of Natural Life, Association of the Protection of Environmental and Cultural Values (CEKÜL), Combat Erosion and Forestation Foundation of Turkey (TEMA), Environmental Foundation of Turkey are some of the institutions that carry out different activities on environment. In this study, it is aimed to scrutinize activities of associations and foundations in Turkey, which managed to open environment chapter in EU negotiations with a special focus on civil environmental initiatives against hydroelectric power stations to be built in Eastern Black sea Region, which is famous with its green cover and forests Keywords: Environmentalism, Non-Govermental Organizations, civil Initiatives, Environmental activities, EU Negotiations.

Paper presenter: Berna Turam (Associate Professor of Sociology-Northeastern University, USA), “Government and Civil society: Islam ‘in power’ and Islam ‘with power’”.
The paper explores a variety of links and relations between a religiously oriented party in power and a religious movement in the context of democratization. As in the case of Christian democrat parties and Christian movements in Europe, the government and movement associated has often been considered as perfunctory allies, if not the same group of people. Similarly, as a result of rapidly developing power, capital and skills of mobilization of Islamist groups and networks, there has been scholarly tendency to lump all Islamists into the same category whether they are in power or not. The recent secularist backlash to the rise of Islam in the region also reinforces this misleading idea that Islamists in all spheres (public, political, business etc) collude and join forces. My paper provides a challenge to this prejudice by focusing on the pro-Islamist party in Turkey, the Justice and Development, which came to power in 2002 and 2007, and the largest Islamist movement, the Gulen movement, which originated in Turkey in post 1980 period and expanded across the globe since mid 1990s. Although both are the product of the same process of smooth integration in to the secular political system and the free market, I argue that there are no overlaps between these groups. Moreover, although they share similar worldviews of peace with the neighbours and the West, and support Turkey’s membership in the EU, I will illustrate that the party and the movement are distinctly different groups, which sometimes fall into conflict and disagreement. By discussing the tensions and conflicts between the JD government and this movement, I challenge the predominant conspiracy that they constitute a team effort to the secularist opposition. My main argument is that the conflict-ridden relations between the government and the movement have both negative and positive consequences for democratization. On the one hand, it helps to reinforce negotiation between the state and society by decreasing a potential patronage by the government of the movement. The international networks of the Gulen movement create a substantial leeway for its autonomy and power. On the other hand, the contraversial relation between the JD and Gulen juxtaposes Muslim civil society against the pro-Islamic government, and jeopardizes some potential collaboration between them towards political reform.

Paper presenter: Sema Akboga (PhD Student, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey), “Civil Society, Democracy, and Islam in Turkey: The Case of Civil Society Organizations”.

The relationship between democracy and civil society organizations has been established by many sociologists and political scientists. Externally, civil society organizations allow individuals to express their interests and demands to the government. Internally, organizations serve to informally educate people about democracy. However, not all civil society organizations foster democratic values and norms. Civil society organizations may be the places where dissatisfied individuals come together to express their grievances. In this kind of situation, civil society can serve to further fragment, rather than unite, a society by accentuating and deepening existing cleavages. Furthermore dominant cultural factors including the values, norms, and assumptions about social and political reality determine how civil society organizations ‘work’ in a society. Islam constitutes one of these cultural factors and some argue that civil society is not applicable to Islamic politics. Drawing on these theoretical bodies of literature, my research investigates how and to what extent Islamic civil society organizations contribute to the consolidation of democracy in Turkey which is a secular state with a predominantly Muslim population. Beginning in the 1980s, the most formidable participants in Turkish civil society were Islamic civil society organizations. Some of these organizations were founded as a response to the headscarf ban at universities and workplaces and have been working for the removal of this ban, whereas others are more concerned with human rights violations. These organizations constitute a significant difficulty for secular Turkish state, which has emphasized the removal of Islam from public sphere, relegating religion to private life. My study of Islamic civil society organizations tries to answer the following questions: How do these organizations define and talk about concepts such as democracy, human rights, civil society, and the state? What is the nature of the relationship between these organizations and the state? How do they react to issues specific to Turkey such as the headscarf ban, cultural demands of Kurdish community, and the position of the army in Turkish politics (all of which are considered the fault-lines of Turkish democracy)? To answer these questions, I investigated a sample of Islamic civil society organizations founded after 1980. I used discourse analysis, interviews, and participant observation. I analyzed the discourse of the organizations using public websites, press releases and journals of these organizations. I conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with the members and the directors of the organizations.