Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond by Nora Fisher-Onar

Nora Fisher-Onar's Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond is a key contribution to the field and a reference source for the scholars of Turkey for years to come. The book uses Turkish politics as a context to illustrate how two alternating forces, a pluralizing momentum, in opposition to a unitarian thrust, shape sociopolitical outcomes, rather than rigid identity constructs such as secular and religious. Hence, while contributing strongly to the third-wave of Turkish scholarship, the theoretical model also provides a robust heuristic for contexts beyond Turkey. Fisher-Onar successfully argues that, in Turkey, coalitions, alliances, and rifts have formed between sometimes unlikely groups based on where they then stand on the dynamic binary of pluralizers and antipluralizers. The study offers a breath of fresh air to the literature on Turkey by systematically showing “how complex patterns of contestation as driven by shifting coalition of pluralizers and anti-pluralists” (30). For Turkey, this model points to the following argument: “It is the victory of anti-pluralists within the pro-religious camp, in alliance with anti-pluralist secularists, that explains Turkey's transformation” (300). Thus, Fisher-Onar offers an alternative history of Turkey that manages to escape “religious and secularist essentialism.”