ABSTRACT

This chapter examines that a number of civil society organizations (CSOs) are the second category of Kemalist organizations. More recently, particularly under the rule of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP), it has been suggested that Turkey and Turkish society are now in a 'post-Kemalist phase of existence'. Since the ascendency of the Justice and Development Party to power in 2002, Kemalist civil society organizations have taken an increasingly alarmist tone regarding the political and economic trajectory of Turkey. The most effective way of ensuring that the Kemalist modernization project remained unchallenged was through the maintenance of an authoritarian single-party government, where popular elections were an acclamatory process, and opposition parties for the most part were banned. Neo-Kemalist fears and criticisms of the AKP primarily represent a continuity of suspicion for the National Outlook movement and political Islam, which can be traced back to the ascendency of the Islamist Refah Partisi (RP) in 1994