Turkey Post 1980 Coup D’etat: the Rise, the Fall, and

the Emergence of Political Islam

Khash Hemmati, Simon Fraser University

Abstract
While it has often been perceived that Kemalist Turkey succeeded in
firmly establishing secularization, the Islamist movement that followed
the 1980 military intervention questioned the fundamental principles
of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk by embracing Islamic identity and Islamic
values in the social and public sphere. This paper will examine the rise,
the fall, and the emergence of political Islam in Turkey following the
1980 coup d’état. Following the military intervention of 1980, the level
of Islamic activism rose due to state policies during the 1980s and 1990s.
It can be observed that the consequences of the Islamic tolerance during
the 1980s and 1990s led to the rise and the fall of the Islamic leaning
Welfare Party of Necmettin Erbakan. This paper will also explain how
the Justice and Development Party (AKP) differed its policies from the
Welfare Party, by blending a moderate Islamic identity with a pro-
Western mentality, to achieve support and stability for Islamist politics.

T
he struggle between different kinds of Islamists on one side and
the state founded on the principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
(1881-1938) on the other, have been a continuous factor in the
shaping of Turkey’s politics. The foundation of the Turkish Republic
effectively pushed Islam out of the political and social arena, and
marginalized Islamic actors that posed threats to Kemalist secularism.
With the advent of the multiparty system in 1945 and the country’s
first free and fair multi-party elections in 1950, Islamist groups sided
with the Democratic Party, led by Turkey’s first democratically elected

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Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (Prime Minister from 1950-1960).

Under his leadership, they opened the door for the resurgence of
cultural and political Islam.1 The policies of Menderes reinstated
Arabic as the official language of prayer and supported the expansion
of Imam Hatip schools (secondary schools for prayer and sermon
leaders), agitating the secular establishment and leading to the first
military coup d’état of 1960 and the execution of Menderes in 1961.2
The 1960 coup d’état is only one example of the consequences of
the attempts by civilian governments in Turkey to enforce policies
that defer from the policies of Ataturk’s secularism. Nevertheless,
Islamic social and political activism continued to grow following
the execution of Menderes. In the 1980s, politicians like Turgut
Ozal (Prime Minister from 1983-1989; President from 1989-1993)
attempted to soften the boundary between Islam and secularism. The
state’s increasing tolerance of Islam in the 1980s would lead to further
military intervention to uphold the importance of the fundamental
principles of Ataturk in the face of politicians like Necmettin Erbakan
(Prime Minister from 1996-1997), who launched “grass-roots efforts
to restore Islam’s key role in Turkey.”3 The three sections of this essay
aim to explain: how the level of Islamic activism rose following the
military intervention of 1980, due to state policies during the 1980s
and 1990s; how consequences of the Islamic tolerance during 1980s
and 1990s led to the rise and fall of the Islamic leaning Welfare Party
(Refah Partisi, 1983-1998) of Erbakan; and, finally, how the Justice
and Development Party (the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi or AKP)
differed its policies from the Welfare Party in the 1990s to ensure
political victory.

I. The Turkish-Islamic Synthesis-Islamic Tolerance and the 1980

Coup d’état

In the 1970s, Turkey was polarized by intense ethnic, sectarian, and

ideological conflicts that were in large measure fueled by a severe
economic downturn caused by the 1973 oil crisis and the long-term

1 Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003), 33.
2 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country: Turkey between Secularism and Islamism (Stanford:
Hoover Institution Press, 2010), 31.
3 Baran, Torn Country, 140.

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consequences of massive rural-to-urban migrations that had been

taking place since the 1950s.4 By the late 1970s, Turkey was suffering
economically and teetering on the brink of civil war between extreme
right-wing groups and their counterparts on the left. In this context,
there was a growing fear among secularists that the recent Islamic
revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran would prompt a similar
Islamist takeover in Turkey.5 On September 6, 1980, a rally was led
in Konya by Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party (Milli
Selamet Partisi). Individuals marched in Ottoman-style clothing
while carrying green flags with Islamic symbols.6 Within six days,
Turkish military forces led by General Kenan Evren seized power in
what became known as the military coup d’état of 1980.7
In an attempt to reduce social tension and focus on the main
political danger, Evren’s military forces sought to adopt the policy
of “controlled Islam,” with the goal of forming a “Turkish-Islamic
synthesis,” a policy which praised the Islamic interpretation of
Sunnism in Turkey for guarding pious Turks from international
Islamist movements.8 In this section, I will explain how religion was
used by the military as a source for an ideology of national unity.
These decisions by the Turkish military and government functioned
as stepping stones for the Islamists to strengthen their political power
and for Islam to regain momentum as a key determinant of Turkish
nationalism and politics.
The military forces dissolved parliament, then quickly moved
in to purge anyone that was perceived as a “leftist,” members of
the extreme right, and some of the more prominent Islamists. This
included Erbakan, who was banned from running for office for seven
years. Post-coup policy thereafter aimed to use and promote Islam
as a tool against communism, a threat with which, in the words of
Chris Morris, “the military regime which ruled Turkey in the early

4 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 68.

5 The economic crisis was due to a combination factors including: a persistent
balance of payments deficit, an industry depended on foreign inputs, and the oil
price shocks of the 1970s. For more on the economic crisis of the late 1970s. See:
Erik J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern State, (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 267.
6 Feroz Ahmad, “Islamic Reassertion in Turkey,” Third World Quarterly 10,
(1988): 750.
7 Ibid., 750.
8 Baran, Torn Country, 140.

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1980s was obsessed.”9 By using institutions and symbols of Islam as a

counterweight to the Marxist organizations and Leftist movements,
the military encouraged the fusing of Sunni Islamic values with
national goals, in the sense that the military government planned
to foster a co-opted and less political Islam to confront a much-
exaggerated leftist threat.10 General Evren valued the “rational” nature
of Islam11 and he proposed that there was an enlightened Islam that
promoted modernity, was open to change and secularism, and could
act as social cement for unifying the Turkish state against what he felt
were the Kurdish separatist and Marxist threats.12 For Evren, Islam
“was an element in the service of the nation and nationalism rather
than as an autonomous force to compete with either secularism or
nationalism.”13 Fundamentals of Turkish Islam were used by military
leaders to legitimize temporary rule and to attempt to unite the nation
under its guidelines.
Religion was imbued with the role of providing social solidarity
by the military’s reforms, which in turn would pave the way for the
strengthening of political Islam and the re-emergence of Islam as a
key factor in Turkish nationalism and politics. Compulsory religious
education for all primary and secondary schools was introduced,
while many religious and Koranic schools were expanded and a
mosque building campaign was undertaken.14 At the same time, the
military formed the Department of Propagation as a new department
in the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and used this new organization
as a platform for their fight against Kurdish nationalism and Marxist-
nationalist ideologies which were popular in southeast Anatolia.15
These reforms engaged public religious education as religious
television programs increased and Imam Hatip schools expanded
from 72 in 1970 to 382 in 1988.16 The expansion of religious schools

9 The emphasis on traditional values, a combination of Turkish nationalism with

religion, was used by the secular guardians in the military as a counterweight
against Marxism. See Chris Morris. The New Turkey: The Quiet Revolution on the
Edge of Europe (London: Granata Publications, 2005), 72-73.
10 Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 69.
11 Ibid., 70.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 71.
14 Chris Morris. The New Turkey, 73.
15 Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 70.
16 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country, 36.

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increasingly allowed graduates to find positions in the government

bureaucracy.17 The military leadership’s efforts to open Islam to the
social, public, and political arenas had results contrary to their vision,
in that Islam-focused politicians, like Ozal, Erbakan, and Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, who eventually became the influential leader of the
AKP, would come to play dominant roles in Turkish politics. In 1980,
the opportunity to “invent a more religious Turkish polity” arrived,
and it was with this that the military helped the Islamist to attract the
votes of the discontented.18
The outcome of the 1983 parliamentary elections, which
marked the return to a parliamentary democracy, albeit a carefully
circumscribed one, sharply deviated from the victory that the Turkish
military had expected.19 The results of the election would lead to
the rise of a leader who played a significant role in allowing Islam
to regain momentum as a key determinant of Turkish nationalism
and politics. The Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi) of Turgut Ozal,
which was openly criticized by the military regime, won the election
over the military supported Populist Party.20 Ozal, who became the
Prime Minister and later the President of the Republic, was a former
Islamist with Kurdish roots who had openly declared himself to be a
practicing Muslim.21 Ozal was the first Turkish president to undertake
the haj to Mecca, and he stood against some military decisions, as
when he vetoed the appointment of a new chief of the general staff.22
The failure of the military leaders to perceive the Motherland Party as
a threat led to the rise of Ozal and further strengthened the Islamists’
position in Turkish politics. Although Ozal mostly acted within the
framework set by the military, he was perceived as the man who
officially legitimized the “radically new perspectives on the role of
Islam and the Ottoman heritage in contemporary Turkish society.”23

17 Ibid.
18 Sam Kaplan, The Pedagogical State: Education and the Politics of National
Culture in Post-1980 Turkey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 44.
19 Sabri Sayari, “The Changing Party System,” in Politics, Parties, and Elections in
Turkey, ed. Sabri Sayari and Yilmaz Esmer (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
2002), 16.
20 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 75.
21 Oliver Roy, “Turkey: A World Apart, or Europe’s New Frontier?,” in Turkey
Today: A European Country, ed. Oliver Roy (London: Anthem Press, 2004), 18.
22 Morris, The New Turkey, 44.
23 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 75.

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Ozal’s years in power nurtured the Islamic identity and

strengthened Islamic values in the social and public sphere. In the
1983 elections, Ozal appealed to what he termed “the long repressed
Muslim identity of Turks,” and followed up by claiming that, under
his rule, the political leadership would be more sensitive to religious
issues.24 Ozal’s party encouraged owners of small capital in the smaller
cities and towns in Anatolia to invest their money in market-oriented
businesses.25 Ozal’s notion of liberalism and free market capitalism
within Muslim parameters allowed for the increasing tolerance of
Islam, and “contributed to the expansion of the public sphere in
multiple directions.”26 Ozal’s reforms were mainly to the benefit of
entrepreneurs based in Anatolia who had been marginalized by the
previous governments which tended to be closely allied with the elite
of Turkey’s secular business leaders like the Koc and Sabanci families.
Ozal’s economic policies were favourable towards and greatly
supported by the Islamist forces that thrived under his leadership
conditions. Ozal’s government introduced Turkey to Islamic finance
and banking according to sharia requirements and this led to a
large influx of capital investments from oil-rich countries like Saudi
Arabia.27 This oil money was then distributed to new Islamic groups
via well-funded financial circles. Ozal’s policies provided the legal
foundations for charitable donations used for religious purposes.28
The increased interaction with other Islamic business communities
and the restoration of historic connections by Islamic groups marked
a change from pre-1980 Turkey. Ozal’s anti-bureaucratic and free
market policies were supported by the bourgeoisie of large Turkish
cities, as well as the small-scale business owners who supported
Islamic symbols and ethics as a weapon against state intervention in the
economy and big industrialists who enjoyed state patronage.29 These
factors contributed in the formation of Islamic associations like The
Independent Businessmen and Industrialists Association (Mustakil

24 Baran, Torn Country, 39.

25 Sefa Filmflek, “New Social Movements in Turkey Since 1980,” Turkish Studies
5, (2004): 121.
26 Berna Turam, Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement.
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 49.
27 Baran, Torn Country, 39.
28 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 89.
29 Ibid.

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Sanayici ve Isadamlari Dernegi, MUSIAD), which offered small

business owners a critical voice in engaging in economic discourse
and business.30 During the Ozal period, a new type of bourgeoisie
emerged which closely identified with “Islamically inclined segments
of the populace” and by the mid-1980s the transformation of Islamic
organizational networks led to a major increase in pro-Islamic
corporations in Turkey, where more than 4,000 corporations were
identified as pro-Islamic.31
It becomes clear that, following the 1980 coup d’état, there was a
new window of opportunity for Islamist groups to assert themselves in
order to gain political power and influence in Turkish nationalism and
politics. Prior to the 1980s, Islam was officially isolated from politics
and the secular-supporting military repressed leaders like Menderes
who supported Islamic foundations. With the 1980 military takeover
of the government, the military did not view Islam as the main threat
to the values of Secular Republic, but instead saw Leftist movements
and communism as the threat against Kemalist secularism. While
using Islam as a cementing force for uniting Turkish society against
Leftist threats, the military leadership in the early 1980s became
tolerant of Islamic principles, allowing Islamists to gain political
power and influence.

II. Islamism and Its Limits: The Rise and Fall of the Welfare Party

Following the 1980 coup d’etat, the Turkish state permitted Islamist
groups to participate in the country’s economic and political spheres.
Islamist groups were consequently incorporated into state plans.
Following Ozal’s death in 1993, Turkey entered a new period of
economic and political instability, causing dissatisfaction amongst
the population. This worked to the advantage of Erbakan’s Welfare
Party.32 The strengthening of power and the rising numbers of Islamist
groups under Ozal’s leadership produced votes for the Welfare Party
in the 1994 municipal elections. The Welfare Party became a major

30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., 91.
32 Baran explains that the Turkish population was weary of the corruption
scandals surrounding Ozal’s time in office and of the persistent disputes between
Turkey’s centre-right and centre-left factions. See: Zeyno Baran, Torn Country,
40-41.

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representative of political Islam, first coming to power at the level of

local governments and later in the national government with the True
Path Party (Dogru Yol Parti) in 1996.33 The Welfare Party utilized its
grassroots mobilization by reaching out to the urban poor, and served
people across the lines of class, occupation and gender. However, the
success of the party sparked “widespread public fear and suspicion by
the state and secularists.”34 This section explains how the tolerance of
Islam by the military government of 1980-83 and Ozal’s leadership
until 1993 would lead to the utilization of Islamic ideas by the Welfare
Party, bringing them into power. This section will also address the
accusations against the Welfare Party of activities that challenged the
principles of the Turkish state. These charges resulted in an indirect
military intervention against the party in what became known as the
soft coup of 1997.
The rise of the Welfare Party can be associated with the state
tolerance of Islamic principles under the military rule’s notion of
“Turkish-Islamic Synthesis,” as well as Ozal’s integration of Islamic
values in the national political culture, which led to the rise of Islamist
groups. The increased visibility of Islam and the influence of Islam and
religious activism in Turkish politics resulted in the increased popular
appeal of the Welfare Party.35 Following the 1983 election, the political
elite under the eyes of the military leadership decided that Islamists
needed to be integrated into the Turkish system in order to eliminate
the Leftist threat. It was decided that this integration could only be
achieved by accepting what Hakan Yavuz calls “soft Islam.”36 This
form of Islam, it was thought, would be closely monitored and tamed,
and “subsequently the Islamist groups entered the system through
the expansion of educational opportunities, economic activity, and
party politics.”37 Thus, by inviting the Islamist groups into the system,
the secular state thought it could maintain its hold on the religious
movements while using their religious notions to combat the Left-
leaning Marxist groups.
During the 1990s, the Islamic challenge brought success for the

33 Filmflek, “New Social Movements,” 122.

34 Turam, Between Islam and the State, 49.
35 Sayari, “The Changing Party System,” 19.
36 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 214.
37 Ibid.

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Welfare Party in both national and municipal elections.38 With the

sudden death of Ozal in 1993, the Welfare Party was able to win over
the traditional urban voters by promising them an end to corruption
by imposing a “just order” rooted in Islamic traditions.39 Voters
supported the party’s embrace of Islam because “it made it seem
morally “purer” than the discredited parties of the center-left and
center-right.”40
Studies attribute the popularity of the Welfare Party to a rise in
religiosity and religious values.41 Under the military rule and later
under the leadership of Ozal, first as Prime Minister then as President,
religion was highly valued and religious schools were greatly
expanded to drive home these values. Although the supporters of
the Welfare Party were not necessarily Islamists in the political sense,
they were moved by religious motives.42 This explains the support for
the Welfare Party in municipal elections by the rural voters that had
migrated to the cities, since this group traditionally considered Islam
“a core element of their identity.”43
In the 1960s and 1970s, mass migrations to the cities occurred
due to increased poverty in the countryside as a result of state policies
that favoured the mechanization of agriculture.44 However, the rural
population failed to integrate into their new surroundings in the
cities. The low-income newcomers needed low-cost housing which
led to the development of squatter houses, known as gecekondu, often
on state land.45 Among these squatter towns, Islam “became a means
of communication and alliance formation,” which Erbakan utilized
to gain votes. The Welfare Party’s supporting base grew in the poor
neighbourhoods and squatter towns, and the Welfare Party used
religious organizations and foundations to help the poor, gaining

38 Fuat Keyman, “Introduction: Modernity and Democracy in Turkey,” in

Remaking Turkey: Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Democracy, ed.
Fuat Keyman (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2007), xxiii.
39 Baran, Torn Country, 41.
40 Ibid.
41 Yilmaz Esmer, “At the Ballot Box: Determinants of Voting Behavior,” in Politics,
Parties, and Elections in Turkey, ed. Sabri Sayari and Yilmaz Esmer (London:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 93.
42 Ibid.
43 Baran, Torn Country, 41.
44 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 83.
45 Ibid.

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popular support for their political movement.46

The policies of Erbakan’s Welfare Party demonstrated the extreme
form of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, by illustrating that political
Islam was still limited and under the control of military leaders who
valued Ataturkism. By the time Erbakan’s party was winning municipal
and national elections, there was a sharp division between secular and
Islamist sociocultural lines; the Welfare Party became one of the main
platforms for “political Islam to articulate its demands within the
public sphere.”47 Erbakan’s victory set the stage for him to challenge
the secular establishment through his Islamist policies, but his call
for the establishment of an Islamic state caused extensive public fear
and suspicion.48 Erbakan’s actions following his 1996 election victory
included: hinting that he might pull Turkey out of NATO; forming
a new, NATO-style alliance amongst Islamic nations; threatening to
terminate Turkey’s long-standing bid to join the European Union;
and vowing to overturn the legislation forbidding women to wear
the hijab while working in state buildings.49 Erbakan’s propositions
directly challenged Ataturk’s policy of aligning with the West, and
his suggestion of attempting to legalize Islamic clothing in state
buildings was a further blow to Ataturk’s state policies of secularism,
which promoted western modernity and clothing. Although Ozal
also valued Islamic symbols and principles and expanded openings
for Islam under the notion of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, unlike
Erbakan, he embraced Western ideas, demonstrated through his
support for the Americans against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf
War in 1991.50
It became clear that the Turkish military, as the supporters of the
fundamental principles of Ataturk, were not going to go along with
Erbakan’s radical plans for an Islamic revival.
On February 28, 1997, in what became known as the “February 28
Process,” the National Security Council (an advisory body composed
of top military commanders, the Prime Minister, and several cabinet

46 Haldun Gulalp. “Political Islam in Turkey: The Rise and Fall of the Reftah
Party,” The Muslim World 89, (1998): 35.
47 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 214.
48 Turam, Between Islam and the State, 49.
49 See Ann Louise Bardach, “A Real Turkey,” The New Republic 217, (July 7,
1997): 17.
50 Baran, Torn Country, 40-41.

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members) came to the conclusion that measures were necessary to

curb the pro-Islamist activities of the Welfare Party.51 The military
presented Erbakan’s government with a list of measures that were
intended to curb his Islamist activities and Erbakan was left with no
choice but to accept the military’s measurements.52 While Erbakan
initially agreed to the imposed measures, he feared that restricting
the Islamist media and closing private Koranic schools would alienate
his party’s grassroots support.53 With increasing public pressures led
by the military, which used public meetings to warn of the dangers of
Islamic fundamentalism, Erbakan resigned as prime minister on June
18, 1997; the Welfare Party was subsequently dissolved and Erbakan
was banned from politics for five years.54

III. Successful Campaign by Dissociation: The Victory of the AKP

Following the fall of the Welfare Party, “alternative codes of conduct”

were formulated between the state and the Islamic politicians.55 The
primary role of the Turkish military can be defined by looking at
Article 35 of the Internal Service Act of 1961, which states that the
role of the military is to “safeguard and defend Turkish territory and
the Republic of Turkey as designated by the constitution.”56 Since
the Kemalist principles and doctrine are fully incorporated into the
constitution, the Turkish military then sees itself as the protector of
those principles and doctrines.57 In the final section of this paper, I
argue that, although the founders of the Justice and Development
Party (AKP), registered in 2001, have their roots in the Welfare Party,
they had to change their political actions in order to avoid the fate of
Erbakan’s party. The key founders of the AKP, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Abdullah Gul, and Bulent Arinc, had all represented separate currents
within Erbakan’s wing.58 In order to gain legitimacy and the approval
of the state’s elites, like the military leadership, these politicians had

51 Gulalp, “Political Islam in Turkey,” 39.

52 Gareth Jenkins, “Muslim Democrats in Turkey?,” Survival 45, (2003): 50.
53 Ibid., 51.
54 Ibid.
55 Turam, Between Islam and the State, 134.
56 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 245.
57 Ibid.
58 Zeyno Baran, Torn Country, 45.

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to keep their policies different from that of Erbakan’s Welfare Party.

The 2002 elections, which brought the AKP to power with 363 out of
the 550 seats in the parliament, represented an historical break, as a
socially Muslim party was now given the opportunity to restructure
the political landscape and expand the public sphere.59
The AKP leaders, unlike Erbakan’s Welfare Party, appreciated Ozal’s
policies and aimed to shape their own policies to match his. The AKP’s
most prominent figure, Erdogan, came to identify himself with Ozal’s
policies as a way for society to reactivate Ozal’s legacy, and utilized
this association to promote his own policies. 60 Erdogan became the
only leader to identify himself with the spirit of both Menderes in the
1950s and Ozal in the 1980s; by invoking Ozal’s legacy, Erdogan was
able to form a public policy that demonstrated the compatibility of
overt religiosity with what the state considered tolerable.61 Erdogan
was able to redefine the Islamic identity of Turkey and to distinguish
that identity from Erbakan’s notion of Islamic identity. Prior to the
formation of the AKP, Erdogan had publically stated “praise to god;
we are all for sharia” and went further by saying “one cannot be
secular and a Muslim at the same time. You will either be a Muslim
or a secularist.”62 The statements made by Erdogan illustrate his views
as a former member of the Welfare Party, as they resemble Erbakan’s
radical Islamic views. Erdogan and the AKP founders recognized that
a patient approach was needed to gradually build support for a greater
political role for Islam within the structures of the Turkish Republic.63
In order to achieve support and stability for Islamist politics, the AKP
founders “thus decided to break with Erbakan’s
confrontational approach.”64
The AKP founders were able to appeal to both Western supporters
and Islamist supporters by avoiding the policies of Erbakan, which
insisted upon Islam as the guideline for Turkish politics. The adoption
of a pluralist aspect allowed the AKP leaders to appeal to a wide range
of supporters. According to Yavuz, the AKP leaders were more exposed
to European ideas, while also maintaining a sense of clearly defined

59 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 256.

60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Baran, Torn Country, 45.
63 Ibid., 46.
64 Ibid.

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Islamic identity.65 Accordingly, their centre-right political party

appealed to Islamists who were willing to work within the democratic
system, as well as to the liberal democrats who wanted further social,
political and economic freedoms.66 This then explains why the AKP
leaders based their politics on that of Ozal rather that of Erbakan,
since Ozal’s Motherland Party was able to integrate the business
community, liberal democrats and the Islamists.67 The pluralist
approach was successful, as the supporters that were attracted to the
AKP were drawn to factors other than the party’s views on religion;
this explains why two-thirds of the people who voted for the AKP in
their first election had never voted for Islamist parties before.68
One major difference between Erbakan’s politics and those of
Erdogan is that the AKP leadership had a desire to take Turkey into
a stronger relationship with Europe. Immediately following their
national electoral victory in 2002, the AKP leadership worked on
the project of fulfilling the European Union criteria for beginning
accession talks.69 The AKP saw the EU criteria for democratization,
human rights and state reform as “an echo of its own struggle against
the army and the Islamists over the past 20 years.”70 The normative
base of the AKP consists of a Turkish-Islamic synthesis, which
promotes a new global discourse of human rights and democracy,
representing the Westernization of Islamism in Turkey.71 When the
accession talks began in 2005, the “AKP seemed legitimized as a pro-
Western political party pursuing Turkey’s traditional foreign policy,”
and EU support among “pro-Western liberal Turks” had increased
significantly.

65 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 258.

66 Baran, Torn Country, 46.
67 Ibid.
68 Morris, The New Turkey, 70.
69 Baran, Torn Country, 126.
70 Roy, “Turkey: A World Apart,” 25.
71 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 261.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, the 1980 coup d’état was a turning point in Turkish

nationalism and political affairs. While the Turkish military censored
some public references to Islam, at the same time they used religion
as a means to appeal to national unity after the military intervention
of 1980. Following the military coup d’état of 1980, a new window of
opportunity emerged for the Islamists groups to reassert themselves.
Turgut Ozal successfully utilized the military’s goal of Turkish-Islamic
synthesis to soften the boundary between Islam and secularism.
Following Ozal’s death in 1993, the Islamist Welfare Party was ready
to take advantage of the more liberalized society that Ozal had put
together. Erbakan’s victory in the mid 1990s brought Islamism to
power. The policies by Erbakan’s Welfare Party demonstrated the
extreme form of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, which accordingly
also demonstrated the limits of political Islam, as the soft coup of
1997 brought an end to his leadership. The military leaders of the
Turkish Republic illustrated that they were unwilling to accept a
radical Islamist agenda in the political sphere. As the winner of the
2002 national elections, the AKP represented a transformation of
the Islamic groups in Turkey with an increased sense of ideological
moderation.72 By blending a moderate Islamic identity with a pro-
Western mentality, the AKP aimed for social integration and stability.
By avoiding radical Islamist policies, the AKP leaders have managed
to gain the trust of segments of the Turkish military and the civilian
population since they acknowledge that the government has to pursue
a secular, and more specifically, a pro-Western political agenda. The
AKP have promoted the image that, with the right balance between
policies that are both Islamic and pro-Western, various segments of
the Turkish population can utilize the secular political framework.

72 Ali Resul Usul, Democracy in Turkey: The Impact of EU Political Conditionality,

(Abingdon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2011), 158.

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