How Islamist parties emerge

How and why do Islamist political parties emerge? Islamist political parties have played a critical role in Turkey’s political life for nearly 40 years, but little is understood of their political origins and the political conditions in which they form. Through a study of formal and informal political institutions, power relations, and the practices of political actors in the 1960s, this chapter examines how and why an Islamist party, the Milli Nizam Partisi (MNP, or the National Order Party), emerged and entered politics in Turkey in 1970. ¹ The MNP is significant because it was the first in a series of Islamist political parties collectively referred to as Milli Görüs¸ Hareketi (the National Outlook Movement), which played a major role in the political arena from 1973 onwards. Its direct successor, the Millî Selâmet Partisi (MSP, the National Salvation Party), established by the same cadres only a year later following the MNP’s ban by the Constitutional Court, ² became the key partner in three different coalition governments from 1974 to the 1980 coup d’état. Since then, spin-offs from the party, including the incumbent Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party), ³ have incited major and continuing debates over the fundamental principles of the Turkish regime.