All quiet on the Kemalist front?

Murat Borovalı

Cemil Boyraz

pp. 63-73

in: Seyla Benhabib, Volker Kaul (eds), Toward new democratic imaginaries, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

As a result of its failure to embrace the increasingly visible social and political diversity in the country, Kemalism, the founding ideology of modern Turkey, is currently facing its severest legitimacy crisis. Through interviews with representatives of leading voluntary Kemalist associations, this article inquires whether there are attempts to reinterpret the doctrine in order to offer an alternative, credible vision in harmony with the existing social, political and economic realities of Turkey.