The AKP’s Approach toward Non-Muslim Minorities:

What is it about?

Since the Justice and Development Party (the AKP) came to power, it has expanded the rights of non-Muslim minorities. In order to provide a comprehensive theoretical perspective of the AKP’s policies toward non-Muslim minorities, this article utilizes constructivist and rationalist insights (the logic of appropriateness and the logic of consequences, respectively). This article argues that the AKP’s policies toward non-Muslim minorities are linked to its normative commitment to religious freedom. In addition, by drawing upon the literature of political marketing, this article argues that the AKP’s policies toward non-Muslim minorities can be analyzed as a strategy to expand its voter base.

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Why is it important?

In this article, by bringing together the logic of appropriateness and the logic of consequences, we provide an enriched explanation of the AKP’s policies toward non-Muslim minorities. In addition to the AKP’s normative commitments and strategic interests, we took into consideration the role of the European integration process in explaining the conditions of non-Muslim minorities in Turkey. Nevertheless, we assert that there are no monocausal explanations with respect to the AKP’s policies toward non-Muslim minorities. While Turkey’s European integration process paved the way for improvement of rights of non-Muslim communities, this process alone does not comprehensively explain the AKP’s policies toward non-Muslim minorities.