Neo liberalism and political Islam: AKP

The last quarter of the twentieth century was the beginning of a new era in the world. This period marked by the events, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the worldwide spread of neo-liberalism, as well as all the emerge of religious revivalism across the world. The oil crisis of 1973, and consequently, the deepening economic crisis in Keynesian economic policy has brought into question. The neo-liberal policies had come to the fore as an important alternative in the process of searching for an alternative or for this economic crisis. Out of the merge of conservatism in the field of economy with a kind of conservatism in social sense had come a 'conservative revolution'. These developments were formulized as the new right and neo-liberal economic policies. The new right and the conservatism were represented by Motherland Party until the crisis and after the economic crisis of 2001 the newly found AKP adopted these policies which were enormously influential on its electoral gains.After 1970, the role of political Islam in Turkish politics increased and the situation encouraged Muslim sector in the Middle East as well as in Turkey. In the 1980s Islamism became visible, but after the middle of 1990s it has achieved an important electoral success. Although influence of political Islam in politics were interrupted by the process of 28th February, its achieved a new heights in the elections in Nov. 3, (2002) and five years later in the July (2007) elections.In the last two elections, the AKP did increase its electoral support with, on the one hand, its 'conservative democrat' identity and on the other hand with its new right policies.This results have been discussed in the media, academia, and in various circles for many years, but the citizens? perceptions of the AKP government?s main economic policies has been neglected until now.In this study, we have examined the AKP government?s economic, political, religious and secular policies as well as how they were perceived and interpreted by the citizens during its nearly ten years in office.