On the Road to Moderation: The Role of Islamic Business in Transforming Political Islamists in Turkey

Abstract

Economic liberalization policy in the 1980s engineered a shift from import substitution and a first generation of state-sponsored industrialists to export orientation and a new generation of entrepreneurs committed to Islamic values in the Middle East and North Africa. Outward-driven Turkish Islamic business in manufacturing and services became economically empowered in the globalization process and organized its own encompassing business representation. In doing so, the new riches have motivated their Islamist counterpart in politics to adopt more market-oriented programs in order to secure their business interests through the networks of Islamic community where the exclusion by the secularist state formed a sense of solidarity.