Did Secularism Fail? The Rise of Religion in Turkish Politics

Religious movements have long been challenging the modernist and secularist ideas around the world. Within the last decade or so, pro-religious parties made significant electoral advances in various countries, including India, Sudan, Algeria, and the Palestinian territories. In this article, we focus on the rise of the pro-religious Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi- AKP) to power in the 2002 elections in Turkey. Using the Turkish experience with political Islam, we evaluate the explanatory value of Mark Juergensmeyer\u27s rise of religious nationalism theory, with a special emphasis on the failed secularism argument. Our analysis indicates that the theoretical approach formulated by Juergensmeyer has a great deal of explanatory power; however, it does not provide a complete explanation for the success of the AKP. The rise of religion in Turkish politics is the result of a complex process over long years of encounter and confrontation between two frameworks of order, starting with the sudden imposition of secularism from above, when the republic was established. Hence, to understand the rise of religion in contemporary Turkish politics, an in-depth understanding of history, politics, and the sources of tension between secularists and Islamists is essential. The findings of this article have important implications for other countries, especially those that are experiencing a resurgence of religion in politics, and are struggling to integrate religious parties into a democratic system

Turkey at a crossroads: critical debates and issues in education

This introduction seeks to provide a contextual framework for understanding recent developments in the Turkish education system. For this purpose, it reviews some major policy issues such as neo-liberal education reforms and increasing religiosity. Then, the article introduces the various contributions included in this special issue of Comparative Education, and highlights some of the emerging issues and patterns

Militarisation of citizenship education curriculum in Turkey

In response to the United Nation’s (UN) Decade for Human Rights Education initiative, the Turkish Ministry of National Education changed the title of citizenship education courses from ‘Citizenship Studies’ to ‘Citizenship and Human Rights Education’ in 1995. However, this curriculum reform was overshadowed by the rise to power of a political Islamist party. The secularist military toppled the first Islamist party-led government in the name of preserving the principle of laicism. Announced after the 1997 coup, the main textbook for the citizenship and human rights education course showed a profound influence of the militaristic discourses as evidenced by the negative depiction of the Kurdish people and political Islamists and the hagiographic portrayal of Atatürk and the army. By drawing on interviews with key informants, archival/public policy documentation and textbooks, this paper argues that the curriculum reform began with the participation in the UN initiative ended with the military’s instrumentalisation of the subject because it was launched with no recognition of Turkey’s human rights and democracy problems

Dynamic thiol/disulphide homeostasis metrics as a risk factor for peripheral arterial disease

Objective: To examine dynamic thiol/disulphide homeostasis metrics as a novel risk factor of oxidative stress in patients with peripheral arterial disease. Methods: One hundred patients with lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (a study group) and 100 control subjects were included in this prospective case–control study. Participants’ baseline clinical characteristics and laboratory data including some oxidant/antioxidant status parameters such as albumin, ferroxidase and myeloperoxidase, and thiol/disulphide homeostasis parameters such as native thiol, total thiol and disulphide, as well as native thiol/total thiol, disulphide/native thiol and disulphide/total thiol ratios were all recorded and then compared between the groups. Results: Mean albumin and ferroxidase, and median myeloperoxidase levels were found to be significantly higher in patients with the peripheral arterial disease than in control group (p = 0.045, p = 0.000 and p = 0.000, respectively). Mean native thiol and total thiol, and median disulphide levels were found to be significantly lower in the study group as compared with the control group (p = 0.000, p = 0.000 and p = 0.037, respectively). According to the results of logistic regression analysis, systolic blood pressure, ferroxidase and myeloperoxidase levels were detected to be the independent predictors of peripheral arterial disease. Conclusion: Our report is the first one in the literature investigating dynamic thiol/disulphide homeostasis metrics as a novel risk factor of oxidative stress in peripheral arterial disease. Dynamic thiol/disulphide homeostasis metrics may be used as a valuable risk factor of oxidative stress in patients with the peripheral arterial disease since it is readily available, easily calculated and relatively cheap. © The Author(s) 2020