Contemporary Turkey in Conflict: Ethnicity, Islam and Politics

Tahir Abbas

Dec 2016 · Edinburgh University Press

About this ebook

New perspectives on ethnic relations, Islam and neoliberalism have emerged in Turkey since the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002. Placing the period within its historical and contemporary context, Tahir Abbas argues that what it is to be ethnically, religiously and culturally Turkish has been transformed. He explores how issues of political trust, social capital and intolerance towards minorities have characterised Turkey in the early years of the 21st-century. He shows how a radical neoliberal economic and conservative outlook has materialised, leading to a clash over the religious, political and cultural direction of Turkey. These conflicts are defining the future of the nation.

About the author

Tahir Abbas BSc(Econ) MSocSc PhD FRSA is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. He is also Visiting Professor at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. From 2010 to 2016, he was Professor of Sociology at Fatih University in Istanbul. He is author of Islamic Radicalism and Multicultural Politics (2011), The Education of British South Asians (2004), and editor of several books including Islam and Education (4 vols, 2010) and Islamic Political Radicalism (Edinburgh University Press, 2007).