Secularism as a project of free and equal citizenship : reflections on the Turkish case

Published online: 15 June 2022This article undertakes a defense of secularism, much maligned by postmodernists and multiculturalists. First, secularism as a normative political principle is conceptually distinguished from the discredited sociological theory of secularization and, second, it is treated as a project of free and equal citizenship. The conceptual discussion is complemented by an assessment of the Turkish case, falsely presented in the literature as a radical form of secularism. The article aims to show that a religious political movement, opposed to secularism, tends to be authoritarian and intolerant of diversity.The article was prepared in the context of the GREASE project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 770640