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  • 2022
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  • Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns

When Fifth Columns Fall: Religious Groups and Loyalty-Signaling in Erdoğan's Turkey

By: Kristin Fabbe and Efe Murat Balıkçıoğlu
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:23
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Abstract

This chapter investigates the role that fifth-column claims play in authoritarian politics. Specifically, it examines how fifth-column claims against the Gülen Movement have transformed the relationship between the Turkish state and both official (state-sanctioned) and unofficial Islamic actors in Turkey since July 2016. Erdoğan’s government reconfigured collusive claims about the alleged Gülenist fifth-column into subversive ones. In doing so, it expanded the scope of guilt-by-proximity and gave rise to loyalty-signaling dynamics within Turkey’s broader community of political Islamists. Documenting the shift from collusive to subversive fifth-column claims in this case reveals the extreme form of political pragmatism often guiding autocratic rule. Although Erdoğan’s regime has long been viewed through the prisms of de-secularization, Islamic political revival and neo-Ottoman ambition, these analytical frameworks obscure the fact that his political project is first and foremost about eliminating competing sources of domestic authority.

Keywords

Fifth Columns; Gülen Movement; Political Islam; Government and Politics; Religion; Turkey

Citation

Fabbe, Kristin, and Efe Murat Balıkçıoğlu. "When Fifth Columns Fall: Religious Groups and Loyalty-Signaling in Erdoğan's Turkey." Chap. 10 in Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns, edited by Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, 248–270. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
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About The Author

Kristin E. Fabbe

Business, Government and the International Economy
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More from the Authors
  • Between Human Dignity and Security: Identifying Citizen and Elite Preferences and Concerns over Refugee Reception By: Kristin Fabbe, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Mara Vidali
  • State-Formation, Statist Islam, and Regime Instability: Evidence from Turkey By: Kristin Fabbe
  • Babban Gona: Great Farm By: Kristin Fabbe, Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins, Zeke Gillman, Eleni Kyrkopoulou and Thomaz Teodorovicz
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