This panel is the launch of Turkey Institute’s very first publication on the Management of Religion in Turkey written by Prof Istar Gozaydin and Ahmet Erdi Ozturk. Gozaydin and Ozturk, Research Fellows at the Turkey Institute, discuss the legal regulations and political issues regarding the management of religion in Turkey, focusing on the role, historical foundations and legal structure of the Presidency of Religious Affairs (‘Diyanet’).

The topic of this analysis paper is highly relevant to recent developments in Turkey, governed, as it is, by the AKP (Justice and Development Party), which uses religious rhetoric and appeals to the public with and through religious sensitivity. The authors of this publication argue that the current government’s recent policies targeting issues like abortion, artificial insemination, C-section and population growth are examples of a social engineering project aiming to transform the social body of Turkey into one with ‘conservative’ values nourished by religious sentiments and that this is very reminiscent of the early Republican elite of Turkey’s 1920s and 30s who sought to achieve their own ‘good’ for the people at the time.

The issue of the management of religion in Turkey has implications for Turkey’s democracy, human rights, equality, good governance and accession to the EU. It also has wider implications for the neighbouring region due to Turkey’s secular state structure with a majority Muslim populace.

Speakers Biography

Ahmet Erdi Ozturk

University of Ljubljana

Nick de Bois

Conservative MP for Enfield North

Prof. Istar Gozaydin

Dogus University

Istar Gozaydin is a well-known professor of Law and Politics. She is the Dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, at Dogus University, Istanbul. She studied at the New York University School of Law and Georgetown University International Law Institute, and holds an LLD degree from the Istanbul University.

Prof. Jeff Haynes

London Metropolitan University