Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism and Nationalism in & beyond Turkey

• In Event: Capturing Causal Complexity: Islam/ism and Democracy

Abstract

The summative paper presents the main contributions of a new book, in-press with Cambridge UP. It proposes an original and timely key to (Turkey’s) politics as driven not by any perinneal conflict between “Islamist vs. secularist,” “Turk vs. Kurd,” or “Sunni vs. Alevi.” Rather, it argues, the driving force of political contestation is shifting coalitions of moderates across camps who seek to pluralize public life, vs. coalitions of those who champion ethno- and ethno-religious nationalism. Using the key to retell Turkey’s political history from the late Ottoman empire through to the present, the project concludes with insights for coalition dynamics today.

Author

• Nora Fisher Onar, University of San Francisco