Turkey: Staying Secular Insha'Allah
Analysis18 Okt 2010

Turkey: Staying Secular Insha'Allah

Turkey's increased economic and political importance makes it a place which outsiders need to understand.

Since 2002, the nation has been governed by the AKP, a political party with Islamist roots. The AKP's time in power has coincided with improvements in Turkey's economic management, the rise of its international influence and a dramatic decline amongst its citizens of support for sharia law.

Outsiders tend to see Turkey as wrestling with a choice between Islamism and secularism. However the nation seems able to live with - even prosper under - the apparent contradiction of a government with Islamist origins and a secular constitution.

Edward Stourton attempts to unravel the complicated reality of Turkish politics and get beyond the usual Western obsession with whether Turkey's loyalties lie with the West or the Islamic world. He investigates the new elites that are shaping the country's future. Will they help Turkey fulfil its dream of becoming a global power and the West's dream of a model Muslim democracy?

The featured contributors in the programme are:

Firdevs Robinson, an editor and Turkey specialist at the BBC World Service

Ziya Meral, a Turkish academic at Cambridge University

Ceren Coskun, a British-Turkish academic at the London School of Economics

Professor Henri Barkey from the Canegie Endowment for International Peace

Dr Soner Cagaptay from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Professor Binnaz Toprak, a social scientist at BoğaziÃi University in Istabul

Producer: Helen Grady.

Episoder(389)

Can I Change Your Mind?

Can I Change Your Mind?

There’s a widespread belief that there’s no point talking to people you disagree with because they will never change their minds. Everyone is too polarized and attempts to discuss will merely result i...

4 Nov 201928min

State Aid: Brexit, Bailouts and Corporate Bonanzas

State Aid: Brexit, Bailouts and Corporate Bonanzas

When the steelworks at Redcar went bust in 2015 the government said it couldn’t bail out the company that ran the plant because of the EU’s state aid rules, which regulate how much money the governmen...

28 Okt 201929min

The New Censorship

The New Censorship

Democracy flourishes where information is free flowing and abundant, so the logic goes. In the West the choice of information is limitless in a marketplace of ideas. While authoritarian regimes censo...

21 Okt 201928min

A question of artefacts

A question of artefacts

How should museums deal with contentious legacies? Two years since the French President, Emmanuel Macron, called for the restitution of objects taken at the height of Europe’s empires, some French and...

14 Okt 201928min

The Problem with Boys

The Problem with Boys

The data is indisputable: in developed countries boys now lag behind girls in several significant areas of education. For years, women lagged behind men in educational attainment. More boys went to un...

7 Okt 201928min

Whiteness

Whiteness

For many white people their race is not part of their identity. Race, racial inequality and racism are things that people of colour are expected to talk about and organise around. Not anymore.Anti-rac...

30 Sep 201927min

A shorter working week

A shorter working week

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the working week gradually got shorter and shorter. As technological advances powered economic growth, workers reaped the gains not just in the form of h...

22 Jul 201929min

Going the way of the dodo? The decline of Britain's two main parties.

Going the way of the dodo? The decline of Britain's two main parties.

Recent polling data and election results paint a picture of woe for Britain's two main political parties. Of course both Labour and the Conservatives have suffered periods of decline throughout their...

15 Jul 201928min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
i-retten
forklart
popradet
stopp-verden
det-store-bildet
dine-penger-pengeradet
rss-gukild-johaug
fotballpodden-2
nokon-ma-ga
bt-dokumentar-2
hanna-de-heldige
aftenbla-bla
chit-chat-med-helle
frokostshowet-pa-p5
rss-dannet-uten-piano
rss-ness
e24-podden