Islamism in Turkey: beyond instrument and meaning

The purpose of this essay is to show that strictly materialist or culturalist approaches are inadequate for the theorization of religious political movements. Drawing from the insights provided by these approaches, I contend that Islamism is a novel form of counter-hegemonic politics, which I call religio-moral populism. Like every hegemony, it has to be handled as an articulation of conflicting interests and aspirations. By deploying Castoriadis' model of the institution of society in my reading of the Islamist press in Turkey, I argue that the imaginary and imagination have to become part of the vocabulary utilized by the analysis of religion in order to deal with the tensions generated by such an articulation. I demonstrate my cases through an interpretation of discussions among Islamists on poverty, capitalism and justice.