Are secularists and Islamists struggling in Turkey?

Ahmet T. Kuru*

In the last decade Turkey has experienced a rapid process of transformation in terms of its political and socio-economic systems.

Some pundits in the Western media, and even some academics, have defined recent political debates in Turkey as the mere reflection of a struggle between two forces: the declining secularists, including the military, and the rising Islamists, especially the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement. One example of this point of view is a recent report from the American think tank Stratfor titled “Islam, Secularism and the Battle for Turkey’s Future.” There are three main problems with depicting contemporary Turkish politics as a clash between the secularist military and the Islamist AK Party and Gülen movement.