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Although the Turkish Republic has been struggling with Kurdish ethnonationalism, we do not see ethnonationalist movements among other ethnic groups such as the Laz. Why? Showing the limitations of structural, cultural and agential theoretical frameworks, this study provides a 'historicist perspective' to explain this variance. It is shown that the Laz people experienced an 'existential threat' due to the Russian invasion and occupation of their historical homelands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These catastrophic events promoted statist and nationalist orientations among the Laz, which reproduced itself over time. The Kurds experienced similar calamities during the same period but the same trigger interacted with some endogenous factors (i.e. tribal divisions and hostilities) and led to a different path. This analysis suggests that certain contingent occurrences might either promote or stifle ethnonationalist tendencies. Therefore, path dependence approach, in particular its ideational version, is also useful in enhancing our grasp of ethnonationalism phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does a conservative Muslim population come to endorse the establishment of a secular state? This is one of the most intriguing and pertinent questions raised by the emergence of the Muslim nation-state in the twentieth century. If Islamic law has traditionally informed the politics of the Muslim world, we should expect Muslims of various cultures to be particularly resistant to the classically secular notion of the nation-state. Empirical reality, however, does not support this theoretical expectation: the twentieth century witnessed the articulation of a distinctively Muslim nationalism in the Middle East and South Asia. To explore this irony, I apply the concepts of political opportunity and framing from social movement theory to the cases of Turkey and Pakistan. The two countries have individually received significant attention for two very different brands of Muslim nationalism. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal established the explicitly secular republic of Turkey for the dominant community of collapsed Islamic empire. A quarter of a century later, Muhammad Ali Jinnah argued for a distinctively Muslim national identity in order to carve out a secular state for Indian Muslims. Where Kemal had constrained Islam, the Pakistan movement championed it. If an analysis of the political circumstances and choices of these individuals yields significant similarities in the dynamic of state formation, however, we have a richer account of secular politics can thrive on religious grounds. I set as our primary questions in each case: a) how did the contender gain access to power, and b) how did he successfully advance a secular agenda? In answering these questions, I argue that a specific configuration of changing institutional structures and political relationships opened a new window of opportunity to the contender, and that he then propped open this window by reframing a secular political vision in terms that resonated with his religious constituents. I then explore broad commonalities between the two cases (i.e., the West as both model and anti-model, political options discussed in the national discourse, opportunism, and legitimacy) in order to suggest a broader typology for Muslim nation-state formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the puzzle that why Turkey is the most democratic country of the Muslim world while its democracy is the weakest among the Western democracies. In the first section, we elaborate Turkey’s unique position as the freest country in the Muslim world, but the least powerful democracy in OECD by using Freedom House Country Ratings. Second section examines possible variables to explain this uniqueness. Particular attention is given to Kemalist reforms to establish a secular state structure. In the third section we argue that although multiethnicty and the Cold War environment also undermined democratization in Turkey, these factors weakens democratization in general, both in Islamic and non-Islamic societies. Therefore, ongoing struggle between Turkish military and antisecular forces is the key variable to explain the level of Turkish democracy. However, secular state is necessary but not sufficient condition for full democratization as the disappointing level of democratic structure in the Newly Independent States of Central Asia show. Therefore, we conclude that Islam per se is not an obstacle to establish a democratic society as long as Islamic rule does not dominate state’s governance structure. In other words, it is not the Islamic society but Islamic state that prevents the establishment and improvement of democracy. Constitution of a secular state, however, itself is not enough. It is merely the first step for the long journey of democratization in the Muslim world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]