Reshaping Civil Society: Islam, Democracy and Diversity in Istanbul

全球民主化浪潮改变了拉丁美洲、中东欧、亚洲和非洲的政治地理，但中东地区仍然由威权政权主导，土耳其似乎是该地区的异类。然而，土耳其的民主仍然困难重重。这一研究项目将侧重于土耳其最大和最多样化城市伊斯坦布尔的民间社会，作为了解土耳其巩固民主问题的窗口。民间社会通常被定义为不同于家庭生活和国家的交往生活领域，它被确定为一个舞台，在其中再现信任、合作和容忍等有利于民主治理的价值观和态度。在中东，民主未能扎根常常被归因于“软弱”或无组织的公民社会的存在，这些社会没有能力作为强大国家的制衡力量，也被归因于伊斯兰教在公共生活中的作用。这项研究的中心研究问题涉及伊斯坦布尔民间社会的形式和范围、民间社会与巩固民主之间的关系、不同社区背景和不同群体(基于性别、阶级、族裔、移民身份和宗教)参与民间社会的方式的多样性，以及伊斯兰网络作为公众参与的替代途径的作用。这些研究问题将通过包括定量和定性方法在内的多方法研究设计来解决。伊斯坦布尔的75个社区将根据所有市政社区的分层进行选择，使用人口变化率(作为迁入的指标)和地价(作为阶级地位的指标)。一项调查将在投票年龄居民中随机抽样(与抽样社区内的人口比例)，总共有4,000名受访者。在该项目的第二阶段，人口分组的十个重点群体(如妇女、移民、社会经济地位高的居民、库尔德人、阿列维人等)将用来探讨不同群体在参与民间社会、使用城市空间以及相对接受民主价值观方面存在差异的意义和影响。最后，将通过对伊斯兰领导人和活动人士的采访，对该市的伊斯兰网络进行案例研究。这个最后的研究阶段将提供对伊斯兰网络和协会在城市中如何运作的更深入的了解。虽然调查数据将使用多层次的逻辑建模技术进行分析，但焦点小组和访谈将进行深入的讨论，以提供关于伊斯兰教问题和伊斯坦布尔差异的定性深度。这项研究将提供对公民社会的架构、组成它的各种协会、关系和地方背景的新理解，以及土耳其伊斯兰教、公民社会和民主之间的关系。土耳其的民主在人类、地缘政治和理论上都具有至关重要的重要性。从土耳其的角度来看，巩固民主一直是一个持续不断的目标，不仅是国家的目标，也是与人权和言论自由有关的民间社会因素的目标。土耳其的民主也关系到国际利益，土耳其加入欧盟的努力取决于该国的民主巩固。此外，作为一个世俗民主国家，土耳其是中东和中亚穆斯林占多数的国家的典范。根据迄今为止民间社会文献所确立的情况，土耳其民主的未来很可能将取决于民主是否扎根于公共领域，植根于个人和社会群体的价值观和态度。该项目将能够清楚地显示民间社会活动的水平、地域和社会分布，以及公民参与(在各种公民参与领域，包括伊斯兰社团生活)与伊斯坦布尔民主价值观之间的关系。该项目将有助于对不同情况下民间社会的形式和强度进行实证和比较分析，并有助于分析公民参与、伊斯兰社团生活和建立民主价值观之间的关系。除了这些经验性的贡献外，该项目还将使当前的民间社会理论能够超越西方模式的历史局限，不仅通过探讨穆斯林占多数的社会中的这些关系，而且还侧重于地方、性别和多样性对公民参与的影响及其意义。

A global wave of democratization has transformed the political geography of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, but the Middle East has remained dominated by authoritarian regimes, with Turkey appearing as a regional anomaly. However, Turkish democracy remains riddled by problems. This research project will focus on civil society in Istanbul, Turkey's largest and most diverse city, as a window into the problem of democratic consolidation in Turkey. Civil society, most often defined as the realm of associational life distinct from both family-life and the state, has been identified as an arena in which values and attitudes that are conducive to democratic governance, such as trust, cooperation and tolerance, are reproduced. In the Middle East, the failure of democracy to take root has often been attributed to the presence of "weak" or disorganized civil societies incapable of acting as countervailing forces to strong states, and to the role of Islam in public life. The central research questions of this study concern the form and extent of civil society in Istanbul, the relationship between civil society and the consolidation of democracy, the diversity of modes of participation in civil society across neighborhood contexts and different groups (based on gender, class, ethnicity, migrant status and religion), and the role of Islamist networks as an alternative avenue of public participation. These research questions will be addressed through a multi-method research design that includes both quantitative and qualitative methods. Seventy-five Istanbul neighborhoods will be selected based on the stratification of all municipal neighborhoods using rates of population change (as an indicator of in-migration) and land-value (as an indicator of class-status). A survey will be administered to a random sample (proportionate to population within the sampled neighborhoods) of voting age residents, for a total sample of 4,000 respondents. In the second stage of the project, ten focus groups of population sub-groups (e.g. women, migrants, high socio-economic status residents, Kurds, Alevis etc.) will be used to explore the meaning and implications of differences across groups in their engagement in civil society, their use of urban space, and their relative acceptance of democratic values. Finally, a case study of Islamist networks in the city will be conducted through interviews with Islamist leaders and activists. This final research stage will provide greater insight into how the Islamist networks and associations function in the city. While the survey data will be analyzed using multi-level logistic modeling techniques, the focus groups and interviews will be discursively analyzed to provide qualitative depth to questions of Islam and difference in Istanbul.This study will offer a new understanding of the architecture of civil society, the variety of associations, relationships, and local contexts that comprise it, and the relationships between Islam, civil society and democracy in Turkey. Democracy in Turkey is of critical human, geopolitical, and theoretical importance. From a Turkish perspective, the consolidation of democracy has been an ongoing goal, not only of the state but also of civil societal elements concerned with human rights and free expression. Turkish democracy is also of international interest, with Turkey's bid to join the European Union hinging on the country's democratic consolidation. Further, as a secular democracy, Turkey is a model for the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East and Central Asia and. Based on what has so far been established by the civil society literature, it is probable that the future of Turkish democracy will pivot on whether or not democracy takes root in the public sphere, in the values and attitudes of individuals and social groups. This project will be able to offer a clear indication of the level of civil societal activity, its geographical and social distribution, and the relationship between civic engagement (in a range of arenas of civic engagement, including Islamist associational life) and democratic values in Istanbul. This project will contribute to empirical and comparative analyses of the forms and intensity of civil society in different contexts, and to analyses of the relationships between civic engagement, Islamist associational life, and the creation of democratic values. In addition to these empirical contributions, this project will enable the extension of current theories of civil society beyond the historical limitations of Western models, not only by virtue of exploring these relationships in a Muslim-majority society, but also by focusing in the effects of locality, gender and diversity on civic participation and its significance.