Abstract

Ahmet T. Kuru’s essay, Rethinking Secularism and State Policies Towards Religion, examines how secularism and state policies towards religion evolved in the United States, France and Turkey during the last decade, using a theoretical lens from Kuru’s book Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey published in 2009. Kuru first outlines passive secularism in the United States throughout the last decade, with a particular focus on state politcies towards the Muslim minority. The essay then delves into the restrictions towards Muslims in France, as well as how Turkey went from being a secular state, to a populist Islamic state. In the United States, the religion-state relations are relatively stable, and in France, assertive secularism has reigned and ruled. Kuru concludes that out of the three cases, Turkey experienced the deepest transformation throughout the last ten years because of its tension between a secularist ideology and its highly religious society. However, the rise of populist Islam in Turkey does not mean the end of secularism. Kuru argues that the Erdogan regime is essentially groundless, although Erdogan’s Islamism has caused Turkey to move away from secularism.