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Conventional models developed through the conceptual lenses of modernization theory dating back to the 1960s, are no longer applicable to Turkish politics; they fall short of grasping the changes that Turkish ideologies experienced in recent decades. In the face of Turkey's growing democratization and societal modernization, Turkish secularists have lost their status as agents of reform and gradually emerged as defenders of the status quo in the face of the rapid mobilization of Anatolian-based conservative society. However, no factor was more responsible for this transformation than the comprehensive external and internal structural changes that Turkey experienced in the post-Cold War era, leading to the emergence of a globalist conservative ideology in large parts of Anatolia. This paper examines the question of why those who are commonly associated in Western scholarly discourse with progress and modernity, have fallen behind the Muslim conservatives in pursuit of democratization and further integration of the country with the West. The paper argues that at the root of the present conflict lies the tension between two modernization routes: a bureaucratic top-down modernization that has allowed the allocation of privileges to the secularist/nationalist elites, and the grassroots socio-economic mobilization of conservative societal elements benefiting from international integration and globalization., In April and May of 2007, millions of Turks held anti-government demonstrations in the cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Organized by secularist organizations and parties, these were perhaps the [...]

This essay examines the validity of the argument that the alleged theological lack of state-religion separation in Islam is the reason for authoritarianism in many Muslim-majority countries. The essay criticizes this argument by showing that a) secularism, in the sense of state-religion separation, is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for democracy; b) Islam is not an inherently and exceptionally political religion, and c) 20 out of 46 Muslim-majority states are secular. The essay point out that rather than analyzing the so-called essence of Islam as pro-democratic or anti-democratic, it may be more effective to explore the socio-political and economic conditions that have led to democracy or authoritarianism in Muslim-majority countries., According to Freedom House, out of 193 countries in the world, 119 are electoral democracies. Yet among 46 Muslim-majority countries, only nine are electoral democracies. In other words, the ratio [...]

The relative effectiveness of strictness theory and modernization theory in explaining congregational growth is tested using a random sample of white, Protestant churches in Middletown (N = 98). Although the former theory predicts that growth is positively related to an authoritative structure and to enforcing rules of ascetic strictness, modernization theory predicts the opposite pattern. For our sample, authoritative leadership seemed not to produce congregational growth. The main finding was that strict rules positively related to growth among working-class congregations, but negatively related to growth among middle-class congregations.

Previous research has consistently found that religious individuals tend to be authoritarians and authoritarians tend to be religious. However, in those studies religiousness has been defined and measured within a limited framework which has emphasized orthodoxy and conventionality. Consistent with theorizing in the psychology of religion, we hypothesized a negative association between authoritarianism and religious maturity. As expected, authoritarianism was positively related to several different facets of less mature faith development, and negatively related to several aspects of relatively mature faith development. Our results, which are congruent with the theorizing of Allport and Fowler, suggest that the connection between authoritarianism and religiosity depends strongly on the nature of the religious variables studied. This research should serve to qualify statements about a simple link between religion and authoritarianism.

Drawing on data from Poland and Spanish Catalonia, this article introduces the concept of a 'religio-oppositional subculture.' This is a concept that responds to two unanswered questions in current theories of opposittion and resistance. First, why is the church so active in opposition movements against authoritarian regimes? Second, how is it that after decades of state repression, certain oppositions demonstrate startling continuity with themes of the past? A religio-oppositional subcultures refers specifically to the merger of oppositional sentiments with religious symbolism, practice and organization. Also typical is a strong nationalist orientation. The primary locus of these subcultures is in the famil, where primary socialization passes these value to new generations. Socialization in the subculture is continued in schools and secondary organizations run by the church. I feel that this concept can be advantageously applied to the emergent national oppositions to Russian domination and to the presence of the long-repressed national churches in those movements.

THE SOURCE: 'The Shadow of Confucianism' by Tianjian Shi and Jie Lu, in Journal of Democracy, Oct. 2010. HOW IS IT THAT SURVEYS consistently find that the majority of the [...]