This is a special issue on political theology in the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries represent a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic and consists of five countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Nor way and Sweden, including their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Aland. Around 25 million people live in an area of 3.5 million km 2 . Although there are significant differences between the countries, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that they also share a common history, including similar societal structures, cultures and religious heritage. Linguistically, they all, with the exception of Finland and the Sami people (that inhabit Finland and Norway as well as Sweden), belong to the same language group, and throughout history there has been a constant exchange, sometimes of a more war-like and sometimes of a more friendly nature. In the fifteenth century, all of the Nordic countries were united in the Kalmar Union; it was not until the twentieth century that all five countries that we now have were independent from each other. Politically, Denmark, Norway and Sweden are constitutional monarchies with a parliamentary system, whereas Finland and Iceland are parliamentary republics. Iceland and Norway do not belong to the European Union, whereas the other three do. Religiously, Christianity has been the dominant religion in the Nordic countries for more than a thousand years, and the latter were all part of the Lutheran reformation in the sixteenth 1. Ola Sigurdson is professor of systematic theolog y and director of Centre for Culture and Health at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The author of more than fifteen books on systematic theology, political philosophy, theology and culture and political theology, his most recent publication is Theology and Marxism in Eagleton and Žižek: A Conspiracy of Hope (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Political Theology: Nordic Voices

Europe: the Exceptional Case: Parameters of Faith in the Modern World

The making of modern Turkey

Passive Revolution: Absorbing The Islamic Challenge to Capitalism

In the last decade, discourse on sexuality has proliferated more than ever in the political realm in Turkey. The discursive utilization of women’s bodies and sexualities has appeared as the main to...

Gender and sexuality in the authoritarian discursive strategies of ‘New Turkey’:

The massive demonstrations of June 2013 against the Turkish government constitute a new element in the country's social reality. After many years, new dynamics have risen to the surface, claiming the ‘new’, outside the context of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) hegemony. At the same time, these demonstrations offer the opportunity to re-evaluate political power in Turkey. With that in mind, this paper aims to decode the perceptions and strategies that the AKP have developed on issues such as democracy and the transformation of public space, and the way that these are related to the ideological background of historic sites such as Istanbul and Gezi Park. It also seeks to address the protests of June 2013 as an opportunity to understand the content given by the AKP on concepts of strategic importance such as democracy, the nation–millet, urban transformation and the Imperial–Islamic heritage of Istanbul.

Rethinking Islamic Hegemony in Turkey through Gezi Park

The end of the Cold War brought about a great uncertainty in relation to the geopolitical order The prevalence of this neoliberal model of development had as a prerequisite the integration of countries other than the traditionally developed and powerful nations of the West As a consequence, the developing or the less economically developed economies were the ones appearing to acquire ‘renewed’ importance A fundamental aspect of these repercussions was the triggering of ideological debates over the compatibility of Islam with this stage of capitalist development One major axon of these debates was the ‘desecularization’ of capitalist modernization and the integration of Islam in the new global order This article examines the case of Turkey in this framework It analyses how the ‘Conservative Democracy’ programme of the Justice and Development Party is ‘harmonizing’ Islam with the transformation of the country and how this transformation is presented with ‘local colours’, being more acceptable 

The ‘Harmonization’ of Islam with the Neoliberal Transformation: The Case of Turkey

This paper seeks to analyse the position of Cyprus within the geopolitical vision and broader worldview of the National Outlook Movement (Milli Gorus Hareketi) and especially of the National Salvation Party (MSP). The importance of this particular Party lies on the fact that it participated in the coalition government that made the decision to militarily intervene in the island in 1974. The paper’s principal focus is on the Islamic criticism of Turkey’s Westernization and the development of a comprehensive programme of Islamic transformation. Drawing from the above-mentioned axes, and from the context of the MSP’s geopolitical vision, Cyprus and the Cyprus problem, as well as their impact on the political stance of the MSP, are analysed.

Between anti-Westernization and Islamism: Turkey’s ‘Islamic’ vision in Cyprus?


The aim of this article is to analyse the efforts of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to reinforce Islam within the Turkish Cypriot community, especially in the period 2009-2017. The article focuses on the changes recorded in Turkey on the basis of an ideological transformation and the policies that promote these changes in Cyprus, as well as on the reactions to these changes in the period under study. One of the key dimensions of the article is the recording of the deviation of part of the Turkish Cypriot community from the Turkish-Islamic paradigm. The Turkish Cypriot deviation signals the political efforts of the Turkish Cypriots to preserve the Cypriot identity of their community, a key feature of which is secularism.

The AKP’s “pious youth in Cyprus” Project and the Turkish Cypriot “deviations”

The state of exception has been discussed and widely analyzed in academic research, as a space where the dominant force develops its practices through the suspension of the norm. A very large part of research on this topic highlights the ways in which a space can be excluded, surrounded, isolated or converted into a state of exception, as a result of the action of the dominant power. However, the violence or the combination of forms of violence with consent constituting a state of exception produces simultaneously new,  unpredictable dynamics. Building on the above theoretical framework, this article seeks to consider the production of ‘unforeseen dynamics’ which appear against the exceptional spaces. In this article, the epicentre is the Turkish Cypriot community and its relations with Turkey during the 1974-1981 period. It attempts to identify the way in which a colonial type strategy enables exceptional means to transform a space of war into a normal space. At the same time, the article attempts to define the oppositional dynamics generated in the Turkish Cypriot community against the normalization of Cyprus’ state of exception.

Nikos Moudouros

Papers

Rethinking Islamic Hegemony in Turkey through Gezi Park

The ‘Harmonization’ of Islam with the Neoliberal Transformation: The Case of Turkey

Between anti-Westernization and Islamism: Turkey’s ‘Islamic’ vision in Cyprus?

The AKP’s “pious youth in Cyprus” Project and the Turkish Cypriot “deviations”

The ‘New Homeland’ and Turkish Cypriot Opposition in the 1974-1981 Period