Globalization and Islamic Identity Transformation: Turkey, Egypt and Malaysia The paper aims to explore the social and political conditions under which pro-Islamic social and political identities transform themselves and come to express pro-globalization views. Its purpose is to address the puzzle why certain Islamic movements develop a conciliatory discourse on globalization and embrace peaceful integration within global political and economic system contrary to what is commonly perceived to be the case. The paper compares and contrasts discourses of major moderate pro-Islamic parties in Turkey, Egypt, and Malaysia (the AK Party, the Wasat Party, and People's Justice Party, respectively) on modernization and globalization. The principal goal of the paper is to test the following hypothesis: identity transformation of Islamic social actors is possible when the process of socio-economic mobilization, exacerbated through modernization and globalization, is matched by a process of political liberalization. In the Turkish and Malaysian cases, where identity transformation is most visible, rapid mobilization of Muslim societal actors, who have remained traditionally on the periphery of political and economic activity, coincides with the gradual liberalization and further opening of domestic political and economic system. Furthermore, economic liberalization through globalization has led to greater opportunities for socio-economic participation by societal forces, aiding and softening the process of their upward mobilization. This has provided a learning process for Islamic movements, consequently transforming their perceptions of interests and shifting the conventional confrontational discourse to an integrationist and globalist vision. The paper then compares these two cases with the case of Egypt to discuss a possible similar transformation in the Egyptian Islamic movement in the future. By dwelling on earlier research on the impact of globalization on Islamic identity transformation in Turkey, the paper seeks to expand the research agenda to two other cases to reject the assumption that the Turkish case of Islamic identity transformation is an exception. While the narrow focus of the paper is on these three cases, the paper offers conclusions that are applicable to other cases in the larger Muslim world.

The rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) are a good indicator of Turkey’s record on matters of human rights, and the modes of implementation and non-implementation of these rulings are an indicator of the areas of sensitivity for the government in office. The AKP, a reformist party of Islamist origins, has a particular interest in the expression of religiosity in Turkey and been critical of Turkey’s mode of strict secularism. In the area of the freedom of religion and conscience, protected by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the AKP’s policies have paradoxically led to a revival of the Ottoman legacy. Based on the findings of a recently completed (EU-funded) research project on the impact of the ECtHR, this paper aims to show that the AKP approaches the three major religious groups in Turkey unequally. While the AKP is highly sensitive to the demands of the self-proclaimed “pious” Muslims (Sunnis), and has also been relatively more tolerant than secularist governments toward the demands of the traditional non-Muslim groups, i.e., Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, it has been more or less dismissive of the demands of the largest minority group within Islam, i.e., the Alevis. Considered a heretic sect by the mainstream (Sunni) Muslim opinion, and by the (Sunni) authorities within both the theological faculties of universities and the state’s office of religious affairs, the Alevis themselves are divided between those who emphasize the syncretic nature of their faith and those who insist that they are just a sufi movement within Islam. But the state refuses to recognize them, despite their proportionate size in the population, whereas it has begun to grant unprecedented recognition to non-Muslim groups, whose numbers have dwindled to near oblivion because of waves of emigration due to past cycles of persecution. The greater recognition afforded to non-Muslims parallels the efforts of the AKP to legitimize the religious identity claims of the Sunni Muslim majority. But the continued non-recognition of the Alevis, combined with greater tolerance toward the (traditional) non-Muslim groups, echoes the Ottoman policy of the persecution of the Alevis and the granting of autonomy to the “people of the book.” Hence, globalization and the consequent transcendence of statist-nationalism in Turkey appears to have led to a revival of the Ottoman mode of regulating religion.

Charismatic leaders who see countries through critical junctures of institutional genesis have an unusual amount of freedom in designing institutions and shaping the political landscape of their country for years to come. This paper looks at the cases of Turkey and Tunisia, two countries that were led through the period of institutional design by charismatic leaders Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Habib Bourguiba, respectively. It seeks to discover why these countries went on different political paths, despite remarkably similar historical and political circumstances. Turkey became a multiparty democracy mid-century, about a quarter century after its foundation, whereas Tunisia had an authoritarian regime in place from its independence in 1956 until now. Using both secondary sources and archive data for a comparative case study, this paper argues that the fact that Atatürk embedded his charisma in institutions and shared power with a band of followers created conditions that were highly favorable to an eventual transition to democracy. On the other hand, Bourguiba exercised power through strictly patrimonial channels and did not invest in institutions. He also interacted with followers on a patron-client basis and through a hub-and-spoke structure that kept elites separate and competing for influence. This meant that his successor Ben Ali was free to begin his own personal rule without the constraints imposed by institutions or a unified body of elites. In the absence of a personal commitment to democratization on the part of Ben Ali, along with that of a strong civil and political society, Bourguiba's choices led to the robustness of authoritarianism in Tunisia.

Youth is often studied in social sciences with regard to their cultural meanings or life chances. But rarely meanings and chances are analyzed in relation to each other and especially in terms of their impact on the making of young people as political subjects or subjects of power. Based on a fieldwork conducted with young adults (20-30 years old) in Ankara, this paper offers an analysis of ‘youth subjectivities in relation to material realities and inequalities in social life. In the first section the paper demonstrates that while young people have common narratives and structures of feeling due to what Karl Mannheim called, shared historical location, they experience and negotiate power relations in accordance with their position in hierarchies of unequal distribution. The paper argues, the ways in which common cultural narratives that make ‘youth’ discursively possible are in fact interpreted and employed variably by young people, who have different means. In the second section, the paper focuses on the ‘culture of time’ in making youth subjectivities. It analyzes the role of knowledge and sense of time in shaping young people’s experiences of social inequality and their sense of place in society. The paper argues that the ‘culture of time’ alleviates the sense of constraints in the present and future in Turkey. Finally, the paper discusses the sense of time and the weight of inequality in shaping young people’s political subjectivities by reflecting on the Turkish case in comparison with the recent political involvement of youth in Tunisia and Egypt.