A politics of comparative conceptualizations and institutions: two non-European images on European secularity in the writing of the 1961 Turkish constitution
Multiple conceptualizations of laiklik were pronounced in the writing of the 1961 Turkish Constitution. Based on an analysis of the records of the writing of the 1961 Constitution as well as on memoirs, newspapers, and interviews, this paper seeks to answer the question: Which conceptualizations of laiklik were put to the defense of which institutional arrangements and for what political goals? Then, the paper explores a possible critique from the narrative of the questions of laiklik and religions in the writing of the 1961 Turkish Constitution to (1) some liberal and multicultural assumptions prevailing in the contemporary literature on secularism and religion; (2) some aspects of Charles Taylor’s hermeneutical approach; (3) some aspects of the rising multiple modernities approach
