Nationalism and religion: A comparative study of the development of secularism in France and Turkey

The aim of this dissertation is to explain the origins of different patterns of secularism in France and Turkey. While France and Turkey both adopted a policy of secularization in the course of economic and political modernization, and while Turkish elites drew heavily on the French model, France imposed a separation of Church and State in 1905 whereas Turkey opted for state control over religion in 1924. The prevailing view in the literature is that this difference in the form of secularism in the two countries is the result of differences in the nature of their respective religions. Accordingly, while separation is an inherent principle of Christianity, Islam is characterized by the fusion of religion and state. Thus, according to this conventional wisdom, secularism in a Muslim country necessarily takes the form of state control over religion in order to prevent the opposite.; This dissertation challenges this received wisdom from two perspectives. First, the dichotomy between "separation and control" is misleading in that even where secularism is presented as separation of religion and state (as in France), its aim in actual practice has always involved control of religion. Thus, the different models of secularism observed in France and Turkey in fact reflect different degrees of control. Secondly, this dissertation offers an alternative explanation for the origins of the different patterns of secularism in France and Turkey. The emergence of distinct patterns of secularism was linked to the different relationship that religion held to nationalism in the two countries, rather than to any intrinsic differences in the nature of the two religions themselves. This is demonstrated by way of a comparative analysis of primary sources including the writings of prominent nationalists in both countries as well as the parliamentary debates leading to the establishment of separation in France and control in Turkey. The difference between the two patterns of secularization can be traced to the fact that Catholicism was seen as an integral component in one of the two central traditions of French nationalism, namely right-wing French nationalism, while in the case of Turkey religion was denied any role in the construction of the Turkish national identity due to the nationalist elite's association of Islam with backwardness and with the loss of dignity of the Turks in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.