Cemal Karakas’ report examines the ambivalent relationship between Islam and laicism in Turkey. Karakas analyzes the processes of desecularization and the politicization of Islam in Turkey and investigates to what extent the ruling AKP represents a threat to Turkey’s republican form of government.

Karakas concludes that state, politics and society are for the most part secularized and that the AKP does not pose an “Islamist peril.” Moreover, he shows that Islam in Turkey has been politicized in two distinct ways: (a) by the state, with the goal of secularizing the population, homogenizing confessional groups and preserving the country’s territorial integrity by propagating a republican and ethno-nationalist state Islam; and (b) by parties and social groups, with the goal of breaking the Kemalist monopoly on the interpretation of Islam, exploiting anti-Western resentments and ending restrictions on religious freedom. On the whole, the Kemalist interpretation of laicism is authoritarian and undemocratic and is therefore in need of reform.