Reshaping Civil Society: Islam, Democracy and Diversity in Istanbul

全球民主化浪潮改变了拉丁美洲、中欧和东欧、亚洲和非洲的政治地理，但中东地区仍由独裁政权主导，土耳其似乎是该地区的一个特例。然而，土耳其的民主仍然充满了问题。该研究项目将重点关注土耳其最大、最多样化的城市伊斯坦布尔的公民社会，作为了解土耳其民主巩固问题的窗口。民间社会通常被定义为不同于家庭生活和国家的联合生活领域，已被确定为有利于民主治理的价值观和态度，如信任、合作和容忍得到再现的场所。在中东，民主未能扎根往往被归咎于“软弱”或无组织的公民社会的存在，这些社会没有能力作为对抗强国的力量，也被归咎于伊斯兰教在公共生活中的作用。本研究的核心研究问题涉及伊斯坦布尔公民社会的形式和范围、公民社会与民主巩固之间的关系、跨社区背景和不同群体（基于性别、阶级、种族、移民身份和宗教）参与公民社会模式的多样性，以及伊斯兰网络作为公众参与的另一种途径的作用。这些研究问题将通过包括定量和定性方法的多方法研究设计来解决。伊斯坦布尔的75个社区将根据所有城市社区的分层选择，使用人口变化率（作为移民的指标）和土地价值（作为阶级地位的指标）。调查将随机抽样（按抽样社区内的人口比例）投票年龄居民，共4,000名受访者。在项目的第二阶段，将利用人口子群体（如妇女、移民、高社会经济地位居民、库尔德人、阿拉维人等）的十个焦点小组，探讨不同群体在参与公民社会、利用城市空间和相对接受民主价值观方面的差异的意义和影响。最后，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。最后的研究阶段将提供更深入的了解伊斯兰网络和协会如何在城市中运作。虽然调查数据将使用多层次逻辑建模技术进行分析，但焦点小组和访谈将进行话语分析，以提供伊斯兰教和伊斯坦布尔差异问题的定性深度。本研究将对公民社会的架构、组成公民社会的各种协会、关系和地方背景，以及伊斯兰教、公民社会和土耳其民主之间的关系提供新的理解。土耳其的民主具有重要的人文、地缘政治和理论意义。从土耳其的角度来看，巩固民主一直是一个持续的目标，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。土耳其的民主也引起了国际社会的关注，土耳其加入欧盟的努力取决于该国民主的巩固。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取决于民主是否在公共领域、在个人和社会团体的价值观和态度中扎根。该项目将能够清楚地表明伊斯坦布尔的公民社会活动水平、地理和社会分布，以及公民参与（在公民参与的一系列领域，包括伊斯兰社团生活）与民主价值观之间的关系。该项目将有助于对不同背景下公民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、伊斯兰社团生活和民主价值观创造之间的关系。除了这些经验贡献之外，该项目将使当前的公民社会理论能够超越西方模式的历史局限，不仅通过探索穆斯林占多数的社会中的这些关系，而且通过关注地方，性别和多样性对公民参与及其意义的影响。

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.