Murat Akan
Murat Akan is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, Political Theory and Turkish Politics in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, New York in 2005. He was a non-residential post-doctoral research fellow with the University of Amsterdam on the “Culturalization of Citizenship” project between 2009-2012, and a post-doctoral research fellow in-residence at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity from September 2012 till September 2013 on a scholarship from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey for his project, “Politics of Secularism, Religion and Diversity: A Comparison of France, Turkey and Germany.” He was a visiting scholar in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University for the summer of 2017. He received a French Embassy Fellowship to spend December 2018 as a visiting researcher at Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités, CNRS-EPHE-PSL in Paris. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Strasbourg with the Programme DEA, Directeurs d'études associés of the Fondation maison des sciences de l'homme in September 2019. He was an invited to give four lectures at École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in January 2020. He was a fellow at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Study (IEA-Nantes) in the 2019-2020 academic year; and at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study (IEA-Paris) during the 2020-2021 academic year. His research covers the subject-areas, secularism, democracy, religion, institutions, minority issues, constitutions, social movements and populism. His past and current work focuses on French and Turkish politics and has appeared in the British Journal of Sociology, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, Journal of Constitutional Law (AYHD), French Cultural Studies, Politics and Religion, Journal of Muslims in Europe, Politics Religion & Ideology, and Philosophy and Social Criticism. He has a book from Columbia University Press on the Politics of Secularism in France and Turkey, a comparative study of the French Third Republic, contemporary France, early Turkish Republic and contemporary Turkey. He has directed various projects funded by the Bosphorous University Research Fund; "The Politics of Secularism in France and Turkey," "Politics, Religion and Society before and through the 1980 Military Takeover in Turkey, 1975-1987,” "Discriminatory and Multiculturalist Speech in the Turkish Media," "The Politics of Laiklik in the Writing of the 1961 Turkish Constitution," "The Guests Who Returned: Retired Memories of 'Europe' in Turkey." (full c.v. at: http://www.pols.boun.edu.tr/?q=faculty/assistprof-murat-akan)
Supervisors: Alfred Stepan and Brian Barry
Phone: 90 212 359 6804
Address: Department of Political Science and International Relations
Boğaziçi University
Bebek 34342, Istanbul Turkey
Supervisors: Alfred Stepan and Brian Barry
Phone: 90 212 359 6804
Address: Department of Political Science and International Relations
Boğaziçi University
Bebek 34342, Istanbul Turkey
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Books by Murat Akan
"Fransa ve Türkiye üzerine yapılan karşılaştırmalı çalışmalar genelde katı antiklerik laiklik ile ılımlı liberal laiklik arasındaki karşıtlığı vurgular. Murat Akan’ın bu parlak ve isabetli çalışması, iki uçlu bir yaklaşımın laikliğin siyasi inşasının temel sorununu göz ardı ettiğini gösteriyor: Devlet sivil dini. Bir tarihçinin titiz bilgisi ile bir sosyoloğun teorik ustalığını bir araya getiren Akan, Üçüncü Fransa Cumhuriyeti’nde liberal laikliğin nasıl kazandığını ve Türkiye’de Kemalizm’in AKP’nin egemenliğinin yolunu nasıl açtığını gösteriyor. Akan’ın kitabı, bu konuya dair okuduğum en iyi kitap ve küresel laiklik kavrayışlarını önemli ölçüde canlandıracak." – Jean Baubérot, École pratique des hautes études (Sorbonne)
"Akan, özellikle (bununla sınırlı kalmamakla beraber) Fransa ve Türkiye’deki din ve laiklik çalışmalarına dikkate değer katkılarda bulunuyor. Kitap derin bir arşiv çalışması sunuyor; hem Türkçe hem de Fransızca kaynaklara hâkimiyetiyle, Akan Türkiye-Fransa karşılaştırmalarına özgün bir katkıda bulunuyor. Laiklik Siyaseti bir karşılaştırmalı tarih çalışmasının en iyi örneği." – Cihan Tuğal, University of California, Berkeley
"Laiklik üzerine tarihsel, antropolojik, siyasi ve hukuki akademik çalışmalara önemli bir katkı." -Journal of Church and State Dergisi
"Akan, Fransa ve Türkiye’deki laiklik araştırmalarına önemli bir katkı sunuyor. Hem genel olarak laiklik siyasetiyle hem de özel olarak Fransa’daki ve Türkiye’deki deneyimlerle ilgilenen bilim insanları bu kitabı yararlı bulacak." – Politics and Religion Dergisi
“Kritik dönemlerdeki geniş çaplı tartışmaların titiz analiziyle Laiklik Siyaseti Fransız ve Türk laikliği üstüne çalışan öğrenciler için temel başvuru kitabı haline gelecek.” – New Perspectives on Turkey Dergisi
Akan uses France and Turkey to analyze political actors' comparative discussions of secularism, struggles for power, and historical contextual constraints at potential moments of institutional change. France and Turkey are critical sites of secularism: France exemplifies European political modernity, and Turkey has long been the model of secularism in a Muslim-majority country. Akan analyzes prominent debates in both countries on topics such as the visibility of the headscarf and other religious symbols, religion courses in the public school curriculum, and state salaries for clerics and imams. Akan lays out the institutional struggles between three distinct political currents—anti-clericalism, liberalism, and what he terms state-civil religionism—detailing the nuances of how political movements articulate the boundary between the secular and the religious. Disputing the prevalent idea that diversity is a new challenge to secularism and focusing on comparison itself as part of the politics of secularism, this book makes a major contribution to understanding secular politics and its limits.
Papers by Murat Akan
Report in its immediate context of institutional change, and in the historical context of selected developments concerning laïcité since the 1905 law separating churches and State. I argue that the Stasi Report marks a fundamental break with French republican universalism, and I show that this break occurred contemporaneously with key gestures of multiculturalism: the establishment of the French Muslim Council and the creation of Muslim high schools under contract with the French state. This double movement to narrow the boundaries of laïcité, and for the state to expand the boundaries of identity-specific, Muslim public institutions and private schooling constitutes a reorganization of the public sphere in France which qualifies as a move towards multiculturalism.
Book Reviews by Murat Akan
"Fransa ve Türkiye üzerine yapılan karşılaştırmalı çalışmalar genelde katı antiklerik laiklik ile ılımlı liberal laiklik arasındaki karşıtlığı vurgular. Murat Akan’ın bu parlak ve isabetli çalışması, iki uçlu bir yaklaşımın laikliğin siyasi inşasının temel sorununu göz ardı ettiğini gösteriyor: Devlet sivil dini. Bir tarihçinin titiz bilgisi ile bir sosyoloğun teorik ustalığını bir araya getiren Akan, Üçüncü Fransa Cumhuriyeti’nde liberal laikliğin nasıl kazandığını ve Türkiye’de Kemalizm’in AKP’nin egemenliğinin yolunu nasıl açtığını gösteriyor. Akan’ın kitabı, bu konuya dair okuduğum en iyi kitap ve küresel laiklik kavrayışlarını önemli ölçüde canlandıracak." – Jean Baubérot, École pratique des hautes études (Sorbonne)
"Akan, özellikle (bununla sınırlı kalmamakla beraber) Fransa ve Türkiye’deki din ve laiklik çalışmalarına dikkate değer katkılarda bulunuyor. Kitap derin bir arşiv çalışması sunuyor; hem Türkçe hem de Fransızca kaynaklara hâkimiyetiyle, Akan Türkiye-Fransa karşılaştırmalarına özgün bir katkıda bulunuyor. Laiklik Siyaseti bir karşılaştırmalı tarih çalışmasının en iyi örneği." – Cihan Tuğal, University of California, Berkeley
"Laiklik üzerine tarihsel, antropolojik, siyasi ve hukuki akademik çalışmalara önemli bir katkı." -Journal of Church and State Dergisi
"Akan, Fransa ve Türkiye’deki laiklik araştırmalarına önemli bir katkı sunuyor. Hem genel olarak laiklik siyasetiyle hem de özel olarak Fransa’daki ve Türkiye’deki deneyimlerle ilgilenen bilim insanları bu kitabı yararlı bulacak." – Politics and Religion Dergisi
“Kritik dönemlerdeki geniş çaplı tartışmaların titiz analiziyle Laiklik Siyaseti Fransız ve Türk laikliği üstüne çalışan öğrenciler için temel başvuru kitabı haline gelecek.” – New Perspectives on Turkey Dergisi
Akan uses France and Turkey to analyze political actors' comparative discussions of secularism, struggles for power, and historical contextual constraints at potential moments of institutional change. France and Turkey are critical sites of secularism: France exemplifies European political modernity, and Turkey has long been the model of secularism in a Muslim-majority country. Akan analyzes prominent debates in both countries on topics such as the visibility of the headscarf and other religious symbols, religion courses in the public school curriculum, and state salaries for clerics and imams. Akan lays out the institutional struggles between three distinct political currents—anti-clericalism, liberalism, and what he terms state-civil religionism—detailing the nuances of how political movements articulate the boundary between the secular and the religious. Disputing the prevalent idea that diversity is a new challenge to secularism and focusing on comparison itself as part of the politics of secularism, this book makes a major contribution to understanding secular politics and its limits.
Report in its immediate context of institutional change, and in the historical context of selected developments concerning laïcité since the 1905 law separating churches and State. I argue that the Stasi Report marks a fundamental break with French republican universalism, and I show that this break occurred contemporaneously with key gestures of multiculturalism: the establishment of the French Muslim Council and the creation of Muslim high schools under contract with the French state. This double movement to narrow the boundaries of laïcité, and for the state to expand the boundaries of identity-specific, Muslim public institutions and private schooling constitutes a reorganization of the public sphere in France which qualifies as a move towards multiculturalism.