Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism Review

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(More customer reviews)I have read a lot of different analysis on political Islam in Turkey, and AKP in particular. However, Tugal's book was distinguished in many ways. First, he approaches the rise of RP-AKP with a strong theoretical framework, using the Gramscian "hegemony" and ..."passive revolution" concepts as his base. The locus of his research, Sultanbeyli, once a fortress of Islamists, is also a perfect place to follow the trends in political Islam. Moreover, he used to live there for years and was able to follow the change in peoples attitudes and ideas as a part of the society, over the years. He explains how the radical Islamic movements in Turkey were absorbed within market capitalism through interaction between the political society, the civil society, the economy, and the state. His broad knowledge on Egypt and Iran also enables him to make a convincing comparison between the Islamic movements in these 3 countries. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand contemporary Turkey.

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Over the last decade, pious Muslims all over the world have gone through contradictory transformations. Though public attention commonly rests on the turn toward violence, this book's stories of transformation to "moderate Islam" in a previously radical district in Istanbul exemplify another experience.In a shift away from distrust of the state to partial secularization, Islamists in Turkey transitioned through a process of absorption into existing power structures. With rich descriptions of life in the district of Sultanbeyli, this unique work investigates how religious activists organized, how authorities defeated them, and how the emergent pro-state Justice and Development Party incorporated them.As Tugal reveals, the absorption of a radical movement was not simply the foregone conclusion of an inevitable world-historical trend but an outcome of contingent struggles. With a closing comparative look at Egypt and Iran, the book situates the Turkish case in a broad historical context and discusses why Islamic politics have not been similarly integrated into secular capitalism elsewhere.