The failure of Islamization policies in Turkey: a “Victory” of Secularization Theory?

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's aim to raise a pious generation has failed to achieve its objectives. On the contrary, relevant academic studies reveal that Turkish society is secularizing. Therefore, the present study seeks to explain the reasons why Erdoğan's policy of Islamizing Turkish society failed despite him having the whole state apparatus at his disposal. Recent studies argue that this transformation is a reaction to the repressive policies of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) and that the dissatisfaction with Erdoğan and AKP has turned into a parallel dissatisfaction with religion. However, this article argues that the secularization debates centering on hot politics are only a small part of the picture and that the modernization process, as the secularization theory claims, is behind the young generations' disaffection with religion in Turkey. The article argues that Turkey has been experiencing a demographic transition and religious change similar to what occurred in regions where scientific developments, industrialization and urbanization, i.e., modernization, had occurred.