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Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics
Winner of the William A. Douglass Prize in Europeanist Anthropology
The emergence of an Islamist movement and the startling buoyancy of Islamic political parties in Turkey--a model of secular modernization, a cosmopolitan frontier, and NATO ally--has puzzled Western observers. As the appeal of the Islamist Welfare Party spread through Turkish society, including the middle class, in the 1990s, the party won numerous local elections and became one of the largest parties represented in parliament, even holding the prime ministership in 1996 and 1997. Welfare was formally banned and closed in 1998, and its successor, Virtue, was banned in 2001, for allegedly posing a threat to the state, but the Islamist movement continues to grow in popularity.
Jenny White has produced an ethnography of contemporary Istanbul that charts the success of Islamist mobilization through the eyes of ordinary people. Drawing on neighborhood interviews gathered over twenty years of fieldwork, she focuses intently on the genesis and continuing appeal of Islamic politics in the fabric of Turkish society and among mobilizing and mobilized elites, women, and educated populations.
White shows how everyday concerns and interpersonal relations, rather than Islamic dogma, helped Welfare gain access to community networks, building on continuing face-to-face relationships by way of interactions with constituents through trusted neighbors. She argues that Islamic political networks are based on cultural understandings of relationships, duties, and trust. She also illustrates how Islamic activists have sustained cohesion despite contradictory agendas and beliefs, and how civic organizations, through local relationships, have ensured the autonomy of these networks from the national political organizations in whose service they appear to act.
To illuminate the local culture of Istanbul, White has interviewed residents, activists, party officials, and municipal administrators and participated in their activities. She draws on rich experiences and research made possible by years of firsthand observation in the streets and homes of Umraniye, a large neighborhood that grew in tandem with Turkey’s modernization in the late 20th century. This book will appeal to anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and analysts of Islamic and Middle Eastern politics.
The emergence of an Islamist movement and the startling buoyancy of Islamic political parties in Turkey--a model of secular modernization, a cosmopolitan frontier, and NATO ally--has puzzled Western observers. As the appeal of the Islamist Welfare Party spread through Turkish society, including the middle class, in the 1990s, the party won numerous local elections and became one of the largest parties represented in parliament, even holding the prime ministership in 1996 and 1997. Welfare was formally banned and closed in 1998, and its successor, Virtue, was banned in 2001, for allegedly posing a threat to the state, but the Islamist movement continues to grow in popularity.
Jenny White has produced an ethnography of contemporary Istanbul that charts the success of Islamist mobilization through the eyes of ordinary people. Drawing on neighborhood interviews gathered over twenty years of fieldwork, she focuses intently on the genesis and continuing appeal of Islamic politics in the fabric of Turkish society and among mobilizing and mobilized elites, women, and educated populations.
White shows how everyday concerns and interpersonal relations, rather than Islamic dogma, helped Welfare gain access to community networks, building on continuing face-to-face relationships by way of interactions with constituents through trusted neighbors. She argues that Islamic political networks are based on cultural understandings of relationships, duties, and trust. She also illustrates how Islamic activists have sustained cohesion despite contradictory agendas and beliefs, and how civic organizations, through local relationships, have ensured the autonomy of these networks from the national political organizations in whose service they appear to act.
To illuminate the local culture of Istanbul, White has interviewed residents, activists, party officials, and municipal administrators and participated in their activities. She draws on rich experiences and research made possible by years of firsthand observation in the streets and homes of Umraniye, a large neighborhood that grew in tandem with Turkey’s modernization in the late 20th century. This book will appeal to anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and analysts of Islamic and Middle Eastern politics.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 20, 2008
Excellent anthropological-political review of Turkey’s Islamist movement
November 23, 2025
White, an anthropologist who has spent much of her professional career in Turkey, explores the growth of civil society organizations associated with the Islamist movement in Istanbul's working-class Umraniye neighborhood. White embedded herself with various families, including those active in the Islamist movement, during the late 1990s and describes how their cultural sensitivity, use of relational organizing strategies, and ideologically-flexible approach allowed political Islam and the Virtue and Welfare Parties to succeed. The author's focus on individual families' experiences in the anecdotes she describes offer a fascinating and engaging look into the challenges of working-class life in this district, as well as how women in particular found both opportunity and denied aspirations through engagement with the Islamist movement (the final chapter, meanwhile, highlights a secularist women's movement for contrast). A fascinating look at a society in transition that offers insights into why Islamist politics in Turkey have been so entrenched and successful since the turn of the 21st century.
March 18, 2010
Es un estudio antropológico muy interesante y completo sobre la movilización islamista en Turquía. Intenta explicar desde esta óptica la clave del éxito de los partidos que antecedieron al AKP, que ahora gobierna en Turquía. Lo más interesante sin duda es todo lo relacionado con el papel de la mujer en la sociedad turca en general y en los partidos islamistas en particular.
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July 24, 2007Honestly I'm just reading this to feel smart.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews