The religious policies of Justice and Development Party (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan period)

Assertive secularism that has been dominant in Turkey became uneffective in the priod of Justice and Development Party which have been ruling the country singly about fifteen years. The subject of this study is to introduce the changings of assertive secularist understandings and applications that has been established in early republican period in the context of politics on religious freedoms, religious education and religious services that produced in the period of Justice and Development Party's era from a sociological aspect. In this sense in first chapter of the study which titled as "Historical Background" it is discussed the historical background of relations between religion and state in the frame of modernism and religion. It is demonstrated that how secularism is understood and implicated as one of the most important results of modernization. Then the relations between state and religion in Turkey is examinated until the Justice and Development Party era. From the begining of republican period to the JDP's erat he religious policies is categorized as four titles: Restrict and Control Religious Freedoms Period (1924-1950), Tolerate the Religious Revival Period (1950-1980), Instrumentalized of Religion Period (1980-1997) and Attempt to Restrict Religious Freedom Period (1997-2002). In second chapter, the Islamism which emerged as an ideology against modernization and westernization is examinated in the context of Milli Görüş an Islamist movement which JDP derived from. Thus, the politic identity of JDP Conservative Democracy is discussed in the context of state-religion relations, secularism, European Union adaptation process, demilitarization and Islamism. Then the basic factors that become effective on the religious policies of JDP are exposed. In third chapter JDP's steps about religious freedoms, religious education and religious services are presented in the basis of legislations. Thus it is showed how the assertive secularism has gone to passive secularism. In this chapter, the issues of lift the ban of headscarf, Alevi problem and the regulations about non-muslims are dealed in the frame of religious freedoms; religious lessons in schools, İmam Hatip schools, Theology Faculties are dealed in the frame of religious education; and qualitive and quantative change of Directorate of Religious Affairs is dealed in the frame of religious services.