Religious Minorities in Turkey Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom

This book considers the key issue of Turkey’s treatment of minorities in relation to its complex paths of both European integration and domestic and international reorientation. The expectations of Turkey’s EU and other international counterparts, as well as important domestic demands, have pushed Turkey to broaden the rights of religious and other minorities. More recently a turn towards autocratic government is rolling back some earlier achievements. This book shows how these broader processes affect the lives of three important religious groups in Turkey: the Alevi as a large Muslim community and the Christian communities of Armenians and Syriacs. Drawing on a wealth of original data and extensive fieldwork, the authors compare and explain improvements, set-backs, and lingering concerns for Turkey’s religious minorities and identify important challenges for Turkey’s future democratic development and European path. The book will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of minority politics, contemporary Turkish politics, and religion and politics.

Mehmet Bardakçi is Assistant Professor in Political Science and International Relations at Yeni Yüzyil University, Istanbul, Turkey. He obtained a BA in International Relations from Bilkent University in 1994 and a PhD in Political Science from Duisburg-Essen University in 2007. His work spans Turkish politics and foreign policy, Euroscepticism, Europeanization, democratization, minority rights, and civil-military relations.

Annette Freyberg-Inan is Lecturer in International and European Politics at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and affiliated with the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research. She has published widely in her fields, chairs the Theory Section of the International Studies Association, and just completed a term as co-editor of the Journal of International Relations and Development.

Christoph Giesel is Post-Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer atthe Institute of Slavistics and Caucasus Studies at the Jena University, Germany. His main research interests are in manifestations of nationalism, ethnicity, religion and minorities and in structures and dynamics of political and social organization with a special focus on the Balkans, Anatolia, Caucasus, Middle East and North Africa.

Olaf Leisse is Professor of European Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. He has published widely about South East Europe and Turkey. His special interest is in Europeanization processes in EU Accession States, as well as the current disintegration process.