Book Launch: The Rise of Hybrid Political Islam in Turkey: Origins and Consolidation of the Justice and Development Party (JDP)

This book launch will highlight the economic, social and political rise of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) as well as its political resilience over the last sixteen years.

Going beyond the standard dichotomy debate of political Islam versus secularism, the author shows how the JDP, a political party with substantial roots in political Islam, came to power in 2002 as an outcome of the socioeconomic transformation process that started in the country in the 1980s.

She further illustrates how the party consolidated its ruling power by catering to its core constituencies via a multifaceted set of policies that gave rise to the emergence of a powerful political machine.

A careful analysis of the JDP’s policy agenda highlights the discrepancy between the party's discourse and its supply of policies. Furthermore, the author shows how the party has skilfully (re-)framed its ideological stance by changing alliances, and in analysing this hybrid ideological framing she presents key underpinnings of the party that paved the way to a fundamental restructuring of the Turkish party system and establishment of a new regime that replaced the old guard.

Speaker bio - Sevinc Bermek

Sevinc is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies and a teaching fellow at the department of International Development at King’s College London.

She is also part-time teaching fellow at the department of Government at London School of Economics. She completed her PhD in political and social studies at the University of Warwick in 2013.

She is the author of The Rise of Hybrid Political Islam in Turkey: Origins and Consolidation of the JDP (Palgrave Macmillan). Her research areas are mainly based on comparative politics, party cleavages, electoral behaviour and gender, public policy andpolitical clientelism.

Her current research is looking at the women’s support for the Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party in Turkey and the role of housing and welfare policies in competitive authoritarian regimes.

She is also involved in another project in security studies that compares civil-military relations between Israel and Turkey (with Atalan, A.)

Venue 

This event will take place in Bush House North East, Lecture Theatre 3 - 0.01