Ahmet Bekmen, Ferit Serkan Öngel, Vedi R. Hadiz

Abstract

This article examines transition in Kocaeli, an industrial city in the north-western part of Turkey, away from left-wing politics and trade unionism in the early 1970s, and toward Islamic politics from the mid-1990s onwards. It does do by investigating the ideological, political, and social transformation of the working class. Based on fieldwork involving in-depth, semistructured interviews conducted with current and former workers and trade union leaders, the article analyzes the various aspects of, and limits to, the hegemonic relationships between workers and left-wing politics on the one hand, and with Islamic politics, on the other.

Keywords

Turkey, working class politics, Islam, AKP, trade unions, political sociology

From: Critical Sociology 2020 46 (7-8)

Editor: Wang Yi