Religion: Alternatives To Technocratic And Neoliberal Development?

Abstract

Despite its crises and contestations, the market-based development model seems to be maintaining its global hegemony over and above other ‘heretical’ development models. The discursive practices and analytical categories constructing what is thinkable and expressible according to this market norm are therefore undergoing a process of realignment. This is the case of a certain form of Turkish political Islam, which, having aligned itself under a homogenising banner, has recently ‘softened’ remarkably. This chapter provides an empirical outline of political Islam’s alignment, in Turkey, with the neoliberal approach to development. From the viewpoint of moderate Islam, development is synonymous with a gradual entry into the modern market era, adjusted in accordance with a few moral imperatives. This chapter sheds light on the rise of a charity-based social model and highlights the many contradictions between economic development and moral development, with particular attention to the form of development advocated by the moderate Islamic Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) party.