ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the meaning of the AK Party's rationale and actions from the onset of the Islamic movement. It discusses the AK Party's transformation in the course of its move toward the center, otherwise known as the AK Party 'revolution'. The chapter explores the AK Party's capitalistic urban policies and the opposition that emerged in its struggles against these policies. Bayart argues that the Thermidorian paradigm corresponds to a process of institutionalization and professionalization of the 'revolution', and also to a dynamic of integration into the capitalist world economy. The Gezi actors labeled as counter-revolutionaries were demonized by the pro-AK Party columnists, who constantly wrote that Gezi was in fact a plot by 'dark powers' to undermine Turkey and prevent the resolution of the Kurdish issue. The AK Party carries the traces of the struggle against the previous Kemalist secular nationalism and of the pluralism of the earlier Islamic movements.
