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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Politics of Engagement: First Encounters with the Non-defiant -- 2. From Fences That Divide to Boundaries That Link the State and Islam -- 3. Contestations over Education -- 4. The Appeal of Cooperation: National Affinities and International Undertakings -- 5. Compromising Women's Agency: Bonds between Islamic and Secular Actors -- 6. The AKP Institutionalizes the Engagement: "Marriage of Convenience" between the State and Islam? -- Conclusion: Reflections on Democratization in the Middle East: The Ambiguities of Promoting the "Turkish Model" for Democracy -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Secular State and Pious Muslims: Neither Rivals nor Allies for Life. Berna Turam -- 1. The Dynamic Nature of Educational Policies and Turkish Nation-Building: Where does Religion Fit in? / Yesim Bayar -- 2. Islam, Nation-State, and the Military: A Discussion of Secularism in Turkey / Sinem Gürbey -- 3. Secularists as the Saviors of Islam: Rearticulation of Secularism and the Freedom of Conscience in Turkey (1950) / Umut Azak -- 4. Does Secularism Face a Serious Threat in Turkey? / Metin Heper -- 5. Christian and Turkish: Secularist Fears of a Converted Nation / Esra Özyürek -- 6. Market Oriented Post-Islamism in Turkey / Tugrul Keskin -- 7. Conflict, Democratic Reform, and Big Business: Factors Shaping the Economic Elite's Position for Change / Devrim Yavuz -- 8. Religious Actors in a Democratic Civil Society: Turkey and Israel Compared / Aviad Rubin -- Afterword / Murat Günes Tezcür

AbstractThis article explores and theorizes the ways in which urban space and political contestations are mapped onto each other. The ethnography illustrates the multifaceted transformations in a notoriously secularist neighborhood of İstanbul, Teşvikiye, as it first turns into a high‐consumption locality in the post‐1980s, then into a high‐conflict urban space in the new millennium on the arrival of Muslim high‐spenders, particularly headscarved women. Aiming to fill the gap left by the absence of spatial analysis from political science and political sociology, I argue that the urban neighborhood becomes central for political contestation when both government and opposition fail to protect and secure liberties and rights. Now that devout Muslims are integrated into highly contested urban sites and share bourgeois lifestyles, ordinary people act in defense of their 'sphere' of freedom and privacy. This new territoriality is largely symptomatic of increasing fears of losing freedom, privacy and social status. This spatial defensiveness is reinforced by people's decreasing trust in, and increasing demands from, the state for the protection and security of their rights and liberties. My overarching argument is that exclusive attention to the bipolar clash between devout Muslims and secularists under the rubric of 'neighborhood wars' obscures multipolar conflicts around the discontents stemming from authoritarianism and democratization.

In the West, Turkey is considered a model for a secular democracy in the Muslim world, yet the country finds itself mired in a crisis of civil rights and liberties under a third term of the pro-Islamic AKP government. Ironically, while the government maintains a discourse on political reform -- including constitutional amendments -- the country is bitterly divided over issues of minority and human rights, freedom of speech, and autonomy of media and academia. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract:
In the West, Turkey is considered a model for a secular democracy in the Muslim world, yet the country finds itself mired in a crisis of civil rights and liberties under a third term of the pro-Islamic AKP government. Ironically, while the government maintains a discourse on political reform—including constitutional amendments—the country is bitterly divided over issues of minority and human rights, freedom of speech, and autonomy of media and academia.

Like other area studies, Middle East studies has an interdisciplinary scope, which enriches scholarly debates on Islamist movements, groups, and actors. However, while Middle East studies brings scholars from a wide range of academic backgrounds together, it is still predominantly represented by two major disciplines: political science and history. Relatively less attention is paid to what other disciplines, particularly geography, sociology, and the humanities, contribute to the understanding and theorization of Islamist movements.