Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, Volume 6, Number 3, pp. 370-387
© 1999 Oxford University Press
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Democracy and Women in Turkey: In Defense of Liberalism
IM ARATThis article examines how different groups of women, including feminists and Islamists, contributed to the process of democratization since the 1980s in Turkey. It is argued that as women sought their rights, they liberalized the polity. To the extent that liberalization protects democracies from degenerating into mere formalism, women expanded the parameters of "substantive" democracy. In the Turkish case where a strong state has traditionally stifled claims for individual civic rights, the process of liberalization women cultivated was particularly important for democratization.