The fall of Kemalism and the new face of political Islam. Twenty crucial years in Turkey’s history (1980-2002)

The failed coup of July 2016, while uncovering the struggle inside Turkish institutions and Islamic movement, represented the fall of Kemalism and the rise of a new face of political Islam, too. This process is not simply due to the long-lasting AKP government, but also to the deep changes occurred between 1980 (date of the bloodiest coup in Turkey’s history) and the electoral victory of Erdoğan’s party in 2002. These crucial twenty years lead us to reconsider the relationship between Kemalism and Islamism not as a pure dichotomy but as a complex interaction, which is better understandable in the light of domestic/international factors, Turkish Islamism’s particular features and internal contradictions of Kemalist ideology. These two decades also show the continuity of some dynamics in Turkey’s history, in particular the persistence of a tutelary democracy; the inclusion/exclusion of parties from the political system; the compatibility of nationalism and Islamism; the alienation of normal political order between Right/Left. Ultimately, despite their different paradigms of modernization, both Kemalist and AKP Islamic élites have preserved the "continuous coup regime". Turkish model of authoritarianism is now entering a new phase with the permanent extension of the state of emergency and the approval of the presidential reform.

The fall of Kemalism and the new face of political Islam. Twenty crucial years in Turkey’s history (1980-2002)