ABSTRACT
In the 1950s and 1960s, modernization theorists regarded Turkey as a model country that dropped its Islamic tradition to reach modernity (Lerner 1958; Lerner and Robinson 1960). More recently some scholars depicted Turkey as almost a unique example to show that democracy was possible in a Muslim-majority country as long as the secular state kept Islam under control. In the words of Samuel Huntington: “The one Islamic country that sustained even intermittent democracy after World War II was Turkey, which had, under Mustapha Kemal, explicitly rejected its Islamic tradition and defi ned itself as a secular republic” (1984: 208). Bernard Lewis also shared this perspective: “Some observers, especially among those who see in Islam an obstacle to democratic development, point to secularism as the crucial diff erence between Turkey and the rest of the Muslim world” (1994: 45).
