Social Mobility and Its Discontents: The Center-Periphery Cleavage of Turkey

Abstract

This study analyzes effects of the center-periphery cleavage on the relationship between state and religion in Turkey during the period of 2002 and 2012. The confrontation between center and periphery is one of the most important social cleavages underlying Turkish politics that has lasted since the late Ottoman period. This study suggests that the social cleavages between the center and the periphery are still prominent factors shaping discussions on the state's interaction with religion. That the periphery has gained more social capital since the 1980s has fueled these discussions. In recent years, the Republican People's Party, the armed forces, and the higher judiciary have represented the centrist coalition, while the Justice and Development Party has established itself as the main representative of the periphery. During this period, the previous elites have lost more power on the state level, a development that can be read as the conservative periphery displacing the secular center to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]