Description
Book SynopsisMurat Akan reframes the question of secularism, exploring its presence both outside and inside Europe and offering a rich empirical account of how it moves across borders and through time. Akan uses France and Turkey to analyze comparative discussions of secularism, struggles for power, and historical contextual constraints.
Trade ReviewAkan makes significant contributions to the study of religion and secularism, especially (but not only) in France and Turkey. It also offers deep archival engagement; with his native knowledge of Turkish and fluency in French, Akan makes an original contribution to Turkey-France comparisons. The Politics of Secularism is comparative history at its best. -- Cihan Tugal, University of California at Berkeley Murat Akan has given us an incredibly thorough account of how ideas about secularism have traveled between France and Turkey and how to relate these ideas to broader understandings of the relation between religion and society. His sophisticated theoretical approach is deeply informed by his empirical research. This book will clarify many misunderstanding in the comparative study of secularism and multiple modernities. It is a must read for scholars from a wide range of social sciences as well as for an informed public. -- Peter van der Veer, Author of the Value of Comparison
Table of ContentsPreface
1. Traveling Through Analytical and Hermeneutical Approaches
2. Accounting for Institutional Outcomes and Trajectories: Political Ends, Ideas, and Institutions
3. The Institutional Politics of Laïcité in the French Third Republic
4. The Politics of
Laïcité Positive and Diversity in Contemporary France
5. The Institutional Politics of Laiklik in Kemalist Turkey
6. The Sincere Government (
Samimi Hükümet), the Institutional Politics of Religion, and Diversity in Contemporary Turkey
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
