Quarterly Journal of West Asian Studies
(Faṣlnāmah-i Gharb-i Asiyā)

Quarterly Journal of West Asian Studies (Faṣlnāmah-i Gharb-i Asiyā)

The Discursive Competition of Kemalist Secularism and Political Islam in Turkish Political Parties (1970–2025): Redefining Religion, State, and Modernity

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran.
2 Master's student, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran.
3 Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Birjand University, Birjand, Iran.
Abstract
Turkey is one of the most important arenas of discursive confrontation between Kemalist secularism and political Islam in the Islamic world, which began with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic in 1923 and has continued until recent decades. The aim of this article is to analyze how the semantic evolution of the discourse of political Islam in Turkey and its relationship with the components of modernity at the level of political parties in the period 1970-2025. The main question of the research is how Turkish political Islam has transitioned from the confrontational discourse of the 1970s and 1980s to a consolidated discourse compatible with modern requirements within the framework of the Justice and Development Party. The article hypothesizes that Islamist parties, by articulating signifiers such as Islamic identity, justice, development, and democracy, have been able to create a new semantic order in contrast to the secular discourse and, in this way, adapt political Islam to the logic of modernity and the modern state. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory, this article analyzes the process of hegemonic reconstruction of the concepts of religion, state, and modernity in the discourse of Turkish political parties during the period 1970-2025. The findings show that economic changes, structural developments in the party system, and the redefinition of the fundamental concepts of religion and state have paved the way for the formation of a combined discourse of political Islam; a discourse that has been able to rearrange meaning and power in the Turkish political order beyond the duality of tradition and modernity
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  • Receive Date 11 December 2025
  • Revise Date 25 February 2026
  • Accept Date 26 February 2026
  • First Publish Date 26 February 2026
  • Publish Date 23 September 2025