Secularization and international relations theory : the case of Turkey

Abstract

Traditional realist and structural neorealist approaches to international relations have largely made a "secularization assumption" by approaching states as static givens without looking at the ways in which states have become constructed as "secular." States' adoption of secularization differs according to domestic context and often creates tensions through the reconstruction of "religion." In the Turkish context, the construction of new politics and an apolitical religious sphere were central elements in the building of a Turkish nation state. This reconstruction, however, occurred at the particular expense of non-Muslims in the republic, whose religious difference became reconstructed as national difference. The purpose of this study is to suggest a constructivist framework for interpreting secularization, to trace its development in the Turkish state, and to ascertain its implications for non-Muslims in the republic.