Theocracy Secularism and Islam in Turkey

In this novel and lucid work Christopher Houston clarifies a particular modern style and practice of politics that he calls anthropocracy<i>. </i>In the name of popular sovereignty anthropocracies de-legitimize the rule of God(s) even as they re-deploy it to stabilize the rule of the representatives of the people all the while obfuscating their political conscription of the divine.<i> </i><div><br></div><div>In distinguishing anthropocracy from varieties of other secular and laicist political arrangements as well as from theocracy this book also gives readers a brilliant solution to what it calls the Turkish puzzle the dilemma over how to best describe and analyze state-religion and state-society relations in the Turkish Republic. This work convincingly undermines two orthodox presumptions about Turkish politics: the claim that Turkish modernity should be considered an example of secularity; and the accusation that the current AKP government should be interpreted as Islamic. On the contrary it argues that both Kemalism and the AKP continue to institute an anthropocratic Republic. </div>