The New Islamists’ Understanding of Democracy in Turkey: The Examples of Ali Bulaccedil and Hayreddin Karaman

Even though reaching a conclusive point seems impossible, debate on the relation between Islam and democracy is one of the most foundational discussions in politics today. Turkey is frequently seen as a positive example demonstrating the compatibility between Islam and democracy. Especially after the democratic reforms undertaken by the Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyıp Erdogbrevean and his effective governance. Erdogbrevean's party, the Justice and Development Party, seems to represent the Turkish Islamist intellectuals' political response to international and internal pressure toward democracy. Although it is true that the majority of contemporary Turkish Islamists have accepted liberal democracy, their devotion to its values has only been in form of a very pragmatic and functional approach rather than a true commitment to democracy.

This paper will briefly focus on the international and internal pressures on conservative intellectuals toward democracy. More extensively, Ali Bulaccedil and Hayreddin Karaman, two living Islamist authors, their intellectual careers, interpretations of democracy and their problematic approach to democracy will be thoroughly discussed. The two authors defend democracy and civil rights. However, democracy is only taken as a set of representative institutions and a free electoral system, and not pluralism, civility and tolerance. Yet at the same time, it is this contradiction that has been one of the major obstacles to the development of a true democracy in Turkey.