Islamist radicalisation the challenge for euro-mediterranean relations

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alleviate any prospects of closure. The weakening of the EU anchor 
resulting from the mixed signals coming from Europe can also be 
considered a factor behind the reluctance to undertake democratic reform. 
Regarding the impact of the EU, the Leyla Şahin v. Turkey case – in which 
the European Court of Human Rights in November 2005 rejected an appeal 
to allow women to wear the headscarf in universities – can be considered a 
turning point for the AKP’s perception of Europe in the promotion of 
democratisation in Turkey. It can be argued that this case led to a serious 
reassessment among certain segments of the party as to how far Europe 
could contribute to changes in Turkish secularism through an agenda of 
democratisation and human rights.
20
  
Such reluctance to take the necessary steps to consolidate Turkish 
democracy poses a serious risk for the sustenance of the moderation of 
political Islam in Turkey. Democratic consolidation can be regarded as the 
“ultimate insurance of secularism”.
21
 While there are secular states that are 
not democratic, “all established democracies have some type of a 
consolidated secular system enjoying acceptance by the majority of the 
socio-political actors”.
22
 Yet democratic consolidation would strongly 
depend on economic development and a credible external anchor as well as 
ideological changes on the part of both the Islamists and the secularists.
23
  
The economic performance of the AKP in its first term in government 
was impressive, with inflation under control and interest rates declining. 
Still, these results were made possible by the favourable international 
economic climate, which is no longer present in the party’s second term. 
The AKP will have to find novel means of tackling the challenges of 
continued economic growth and new job creation in a deeply unfavourable 
global economic environment, to sustain the support of the middle classes 
that play such an important role in its moderation and to pursue further 
                                                      
20
 S. Aydin and R. Çakır, “Political Islam in Turkey”, in M. Emerson and R. Youngs 
(eds), Political Islam and European Foreign Policy: Perspectives from Muslim Democrats 
of the Mediterranean, CEPS, Brussels, 2007. 
21
 Somer (2007), op. cit., p. 1281. 
22
 Ibid.  
23
 Ibid., p. 1282. 

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democratisation.
24
 An unequivocal commitment to Turkish membership by 
the EU would also play a crucial role in the consolidation of Turkish 
democracy by enhancing the credibility of the Union as a promoter of 
Turkish democratisation. The AKP would also need to reprioritise the EU 
accession process, not only for the future of the reform trajectory, but also 
for its own systemic survival. This became evident once again with the 
closure case opened against the AKP. Reforms undertaken by the AKP to 
attain harmonisation with the EU constituted the main official justification 
of the Constitutional Court for its decision not to ban the party.
25
   
Both the secularists and the Islamists would also have to readapt their 
ideology to expand their views on a pluralist democracy. The issues of 
“ambiguity” and “trust” consequently become highly significant in this 
context.
26
 One of the main impediments to the building of trust between the 
Islamists and the secularists relate to the AKP’s ambivalence on issues that 
lie at the heart of the debates over secularism in Turkey. The AKP’s 
preferred label of “conservative democracy” claims to “give voice to the 
Turkish people’s values and to bridge the gap between the state and the 
people”.
27
 How such shared “values” are defined, justified and selected 
remains (for the secularists, dangerously) ambivalent. Similarly, such 
ambivalence is also present in the party’s line on the public role of Islam, 
on which the AKP does not articulate a clear position.
28
 This ambivalence in 
turn fosters fear among the secularists that the party has a hidden agenda 
of gradually Islamising Turkish society. 
A sustainable moderation of political Islam in the framework of 
democratic consolidation furthermore requires the existence of strong 
secularist opposition parties that would push the AKP towards extending 
the democratisation process. Such parties would compete with the AKP for 
                                                      
24
  Ş. Pamuk, “Globalization, Industrialisation and Changing Politics in Turkey”, 
New Perspectives on Turkey, No. 38, 2008. 
25
 Official Gazette, No. 27034, 24 October 2008. 
26
 Somer (2007), op. cit., p. 1283. 
27
  S.  Tepe,  “A  Pro-Islamic  Party?  Promises  and  Limits  of  Turkey’s  Justice  and 
Development Party”, in M. Hakan Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: 
Democracy and the AK Parti, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006, pp. 121-
122. 
28
 Ibid.; see the discussion on pp. 123-132. 

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the party’s moderate constituency by being in favour of expanding 
individual rights and freedoms, and they could help decrease polarisation 
along the religious/secular axis in Turkish society. There is currently an 
absence of such parties in the Turkish political context. The Republican 
People’s Party, which is currently the major party on the left, is almost 
indistinguishable from the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Action Party in its 
defensive nationalism and its reluctance concerning democratic reform.
29
  
The moderation of political Islam under the AKP should thus not be 
taken for granted. As the compatibility between Islam and free market 
values became a central element of the Islamic identity in Turkey, 
especially from the mid-1990s onwards, a new Islamic middle class 
emerged that is not only visible, but is also a strong competitor for state 
power.
30
 This new middle class upholds economic liberalism, but is socially 
conservative, particularly on gender-related issues.
31
 As recently observed 
by the famous Turkish scholar of Ottoman and Turkish history, Şerif 
Mardin, the promotion of Islamic/conservative social values by the AKP, 
combined with social pressure stemming from this new middle class, 
creates a strong potential for the increasing Islamisation of Turkish society. 
Mardin highlights that this may not be the ultimate intention of the AKP; 
yet the party policies that promote societal Islam, such as ignoring illegal 
Quran courses, may indeed facilitate such social dynamics, possibly to the 
extent that they shift the party further to the right.
32
 The AKP is not a 
monolithic or homogenous party, but consists of various factions including 
those that have joined it from the ranks of conventional centre-right parties. 
Nevertheless, there is still a strong Islamist core, meaning that there may 
always be potential for gradual Islamisation under conditions of 
                                                      
29
 Z. Öniş, “Conservative Globalists versus Defensive Nationalists: Political Parties 
and Paradoxes of Europeanization in Turkey”, Journal of Southern Europe and the 
Balkans, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2007. 
30
 Pamuk (2008), op. cit. 
31
 European Stability Initiative (ESI), Islamic Calvinists: Change and Conservatism in 
Central Anatolia, ESI, Berlin/Istanbul, 19 September 2005. 
32
 See Ruşen Çakır’s interview with Şerif Mardin in R. Çakır (ed.), Mahalle Baskısı: 
Prof. Dr. Şerif Mardin’in Tezlerinden Hareketle Türkiye’de İslam, Cumhuriyet, Laiklik ve 
Demokrasi [Small-Town Pressure: Islam, Republic, Secularism and Democracy in 
Turkey from the View of Şerif Mardin’s Theses], Istanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2008. 

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