Contesting Pluralism(s)
Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond

Challenges accounts of Turkish/Muslim politics driven by 'Islamist vs. secularist' competition, offering a framework centred on pluralism.

Nora Fisher-Onar (Author)

9781108838702, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 January 2025

346 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.5 cm, 0.64 kg

'Fisher-Onar's work is significant for its ambitious attempt to develop a long durée theoretical framework for Turkish politics. By reinterpreting Mardin's center-periphery thesis as a dynamic contest between pluralizers and anti-pluralists, the book opens a critical space for rethinking the formation and dissolution of coalitions across different historical eras. At a time when the complexities of pluralism and anti-pluralism continue to shape Turkey's political landscape, the study not only maps past alignments but also invites future scholarship to further refine and expand the analytical framework, encouraging continued debate on pluralist and anti-pluralist dynamics within and beyond Turkey.' Özgenur Korlu, Turkish Studies

Contesting Pluralism(s) challenges a widespread tendency to limit studies of Turkish – and Muslim – politics to 'Islamist vs. secularist' or 'Islam vs. democracy' debates. Instead, Nora Fisher-Onar's innovative argument centers on coalitions for and against pluralism. Retelling Turkey's story from the late Ottoman Empire to the present as a tale of pluralizing vs. anti-pluralist coalitions, this book offers an alternative explanation for major outcomes from elections and coup d'etats to revolutions. Here, cross-camp alliances pit those who are willing to coexist with 'Other(s)' against those who champion a unitary, national project in which everyone speaks, believes, looks, and loves as they do. Drawing on a rich array of primary and secondary data, Fisher-Onar introduces an analytical framework for capturing causal complexity in political contestation. This study rejects Orientalist exceptionalism, rereading the relationship between political religion, pluralism, and populism via a framework that travels across and beyond the Muslim-majority world.

By Way of Introduction: Capturing Complexity, Contesting Pluralism
Part I. Theory: 1. Hard Binaries and their discontents
2. Pluralizers and anti-pluralists-an alternative key to Politics in Turkey and beyond
Part II. History: 3. Long Nineteenth Century-from Ottoman Universalism to Turkish nationalism
4. Short Twentieth Century-between embedded liberalism and ethno (-religious) nationalism
Part III. Twenty-First Century: 5. EU-niversalism, the Islamo-liberal moment, and nationalist backlash
6. Neo-Ottomanism-from pluralizing promise to religious populism
7. Turkey turns-of clashing Islamists, contesting kurds, and a coup attempt
8. Turkish-Islamist synthesis 2.0 and the new pluralizers
Conclusion: Learning from Turkey's transformation–lessons for (comparative) area studies, politics, and International relations
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]