Description
The decline of the Ottoman Empire led to the emergence of the new Turkiye in 1923, guided under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which enthralled the recognition and consolidation of the new structure that emphasized modern and Western orientation. In Turkish democracy, the military acted as the guardian of the constitution and intervened in politics, frequently favouring Kemalist values. The lack of political freedoms and a stable democratic culture fabricated the operation of civil society organizations in a formidable manner. In the late 1970s, the civil society organization called the Gulen Movement served at the grassroots level and provided education and humanitarian aid services. Therefore, the Gulen activity primarily focused on synthesizing the aspects of Modernity and Islam. It emerged as a crucial doctrine for the upsurge of its democratic modernity. With the height of the multi-party system and the onset of the Neo-liberal paradigm, the rise of the Anatolian middle class succoured the magnification of the Gulen movement on one side and new political actors like AKP (Justice and Development Party) on the other. Consequently, the Gulen movement endeavoured to fill the vacuum through its pertaining role in the democratic structure of the modern state of Turkey.
Therefore, the research aims to analyse the part of the Gulen movement through Gramsci's concept of 'Cultural Hegemony' as a theoretical framework. Through a qualitative approach, this research explains the civil-military relations in Turkiye and the liaison between the Gulen movement and the AKP government post-2003, strengthening and deepening Turkish democracy. Further, the paper will also discuss the response of the AKP government under Erdogan's rule and its measures towards the Gulen movement after 2016, when their relations soured and when Turkish democracy backslides due to increasing authoritarianism.
