Secularization and its influence on the formation of citizen in Turkey

This thesis aims to explore the causal relationship between the process of secularization from the context of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious empire (Ottoman Empire) to that of a nation state (Turkish Republic) and identity building among major ethnic groups in Turkey. Secularization is taken both as secularization of the political center (Istanbul during the Ottoman Era and later Ankara) and secularization of society. The study covers a comprehensive theoretical debate around the concepts of secular/secularism, nation/nationalism and identity. In an effort to find out which approach fits as the best explanatory tool in the context of Turkey different schools of thought on these concepts are looked into in a comparative way. The interplay between identity and secularism will be analyzed through a perspective of social entrepreneurship which combines constructivist approach with instrumentalist and brings powerful explanatory tools with all its flexibility. The process of nation-building in Turkey and the transformation from a society which is structured along religious identity to another one defined as a modern nation is the core subject of this study. The process of secularization is central to nation-building because in most cases nationalism tends to accept no power beyond or above the will of the nation and secularism functions as the legitimizing ideology of the nation-building process. This study covers an important aspect of Ottoman-Turkish modernization by covering secularization since the issue is at the heart of the whole modernization process and remains to be a relevant debate in Turkey.