The so-called "Turkish model," in which an Islamist party heads an ostensible democracy, has been posited in recent weeks as a likely outcome in post-authoritarian Arab countries. Likely, maybe; but Turkey's experience under the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, suggests that such a path may also be a slippery slope.
The AKP does not aim to create a fundamentalist state in Turkey, but the ruling party's conservative policies might inadvertently lead to just that. For several years the AKP has been transforming Turkish society by making religion the moral compass of the country's body politic. This does not mean that the AKP wants to turn Turkey into a theocracy. But the problem is that once narrowly-defined faith becomes a guiding principle in policy, fundamentalists claiming ideological purity become more competitive politically. Their demands for an even stricter implementation of religion-based rules and values are triggering an ideological purity race and risk pushing Turkish society toward radicalization.
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