Religious Social Movements and Economic Welfare in Modern Turkey

In all societies, there have been some movements that point out social, political, economic, ideological, or moral problems or aim at partial or complete change. This chapter discusses the new meanings attributed to the concept of social movements in the postmodern era. A theoretical framework is proposed to understand the nature of social movements since the 1960s and to demonstrate their differences from classical movements. Turkey provides a particularly rich context with high potential for social movements, both with secular and religious aspirations. Religious social movements have shown quite a tense relationship with the state throughout the history of the republic; yet, they have gained power and prosperity through evolving liberal economic policies since the 1980s. Therefore, resource mobilization and new social movement paradigms are used in this chapter to explain Turkey’s religious social movements today.