Islamic Nationalism and the Future of Turkish Democracy

An online panel discussion with Professor Emeritus Jenny White, Associate Professor Sebnem Gumuscu and Hannah Lucinda Smith. Guest moderated by Dr James Ryan. 12 March 2025 14.00 GMT
From our series Power, Legitimacy and Influence: the Future of Asia
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This panel discussion is the first in our new series Power, Legitimacy and Influence: the Future of Asia. The series will run over the next two years exploring six long-standing regimes in Asia that have had and continue to have a huge influence outside their own borders, shaping the region and its trajectory. It will consider their leadership, the sources of their legitimacy and their guiding doctrine in order to gain an insight into what the future of Asia might look like.
In this first event of the series we will examine the impact of Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party on democracy in Türkiye, the role of Islamic nationalism in shaping the political system domestically, as well as the country’s foreign policy, and the tension between democracy and autocracy under Erdoğan. Türkiye is an influential player in the Middle East and Europe as well as the Turkic and Islamic worlds. President Erdoğan came to power just over two decades ago and his leadership has seen a decisive shift towards Islamic nationalism, social conservatism, democratic backsliding and an increasingly authoritarian style of government. He has survived an attempted coup and become an influential leader on the world stage but now his popularity is waning at home and the Turkish economy is in trouble. What does this mean for Türkiye and its influence on Asia?

Jenny White is a writer and a social anthropologist specialising in Türkiye. In 2016, she took up a professorship at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies and was formerly President of the Turkish Studies Association. She has published several books on contemporary Türkiye including Turkish Kaleidoscope, Muslim Nationalists and the New Turks and Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (winner of the 2003 Douglass Prize for best book in Europeanist anthropology).

Sebnem Gumuscu is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College, Vermont focusing on political parties, democratisation, democratic backsliding, political Islam, and Middle Eastern politics. Her first book, co-authored with E. Fuat Keyman, entitled Democracy, Identity, and Foreign Policy in Turkey examines Türkiye’s transformation under the AKP since 2002 and her most recent book, Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia, focuses on Islamist parties and their democratic commitments when in power.

Hannah Lucinda Smith is a journalist who has been based in Türkiye since 2013, reporting across the Middle East and Europe for The Times of London, The Atlantic, WIRED, and others. As well as covering all the major events in Türkiye over the past decade, she has also reported from inside rebel-held Syria, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and investigated cryptocurrency and sanctions-busting in the former Soviet Union. Smith is the author Erdoğan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey, an account of the Turkish president’s path to autocracy, and Zarifa: A Women’s Battle in a Man’s World, written with the Afghan former mayor and human rights activist Zarifa Ghafari.

James Ryan is the Executive Director of the Middle East Research and Information Project and the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association as well as being an Adjunct Professor of History and International Studies at Rowan University. He is a historian focusing on the history and politics of the Ottoman Empire and Türkiye in the 20th and 21st centuries and is currently working on a book project investigating the history of dissent and opposition in Türkiye during the interwar period.