Intra-conservative Bloc Contestations on Gender Equality in Turkey – Norm Reception in Fragmented Normative Orders

Abstract

This research problematizes the contested nature of the global norm diffusion by focusing on intra-group rivalries and fragmentations shaping local responses (often reactionary and resistant) to global norms. Such an examination is important primarily to account for what leads to shifts in the local reception of norms over time. This study empirically explores local fragmentation, rivalry and change in response nexus in the example of the reception of the global gender equality norms in Turkey by the conservative normative bloc. It reveals that the conservative bloc is not a monolithic normative order and that there are two main competing receptions of the gender equality norm within the group in Turkey. With a firm emphasis on Turkey’s first initiating and later withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, the study elaborates how the institutionalized conservative response to gender equality has shifted from a compromising acceptance to a rejection over time.

Keywords

Norm contestation norm rejection gender equality gender justice Istanbul Convention Turkey

Introduction

The existing literature on norm diffusion and reception often assumes that there exists a monolithic local normative order in the norm-receiving locality, generating a unified local response to the incoming global norm, often in the form of compliance and/or localization. This article contributes to this literature, pointing to the plurality of normative orders in norm-receiving localities and relatedly, even the plurality of responses from-within each normative order to the in-coming norm (in the form of a normative fragmentation). It argues that multiple actors participate in the local reception of global norms and these actors generate multiple and often competing responses to global norms. Thus, compliant, localizing and rejecting responses may all be present simultaneously within the norm-receiving locality, maintained in rivalry by local agents from rival normative or power blocs through power play – something suggestive of how norms’ reception (the dynamics of compliance) change over time.

To empirically examine such an interrelationship, this article studies the intra-communal normative contestations within the conservative bloc in Turkey developed out of divergences in the reception of the global gender equality norms. In the reception of global gender norms within Turkey, we see the articulation of several favouring and dissenting institutionalized politico-cultural responses, and retrospectively, these responses were extensively thought as organized around a secular and conservative divide. This traditional binary, however, has not been enough to grasp some current dynamics, which necessitates the consideration of the intra-group dynamics, especially the ones in the conservative bloc. The recent decision to retreat from the Istanbul Convention, despite Turkey’s acting as one of the proud initiators of the Convention for years, would be made sense of only through unpacking the intra-group dynamics within the conservative bloc.

This article, within this scope, argues that the conservative bloc is not a monolithic normative order and that there are at least two main competing receptions of the gender equality norm within the group. While conservative norm localizers, the Women and Democracy Organization (Kadın ve Demokrasi Derneği – KADEM) being the most influential of them thanks to its close relations with the government, have reconstructed the meaning and the content of the term gender to match it with the conservative Islamic normative order through advocating the norm of gender justice, conservative norm rejectionists have framed the gender equality norm as an alien or Western or imperial imposition and a threat to the traditional societal norms, values and beliefs. They, relatedly, have also denounced gender justice as a deviant thought, in the service of Western norms. This represents a moment for the conservative bloc when, particularly for the rejectionists, the response to gender equality norm became an indicator of true religiosity, confirming Bayat (2007). The debates around the Istanbul Convention were thus a show case, particularly for the rejectionists, in this regard. For the localizers, however, the Istanbul Convention was a means to display endorsement to gender ideology, yet the groups other than KADEM were hesitant to involve in the contestation with the rejectionists as they lacked the access to governmental toleration and protection – KADEM’s courage emanated from the close links the organization secured with the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party – Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP), as one of its founding members and its vice president, Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar, is President Erdogan’s daughter. The norm localizers, this research refers to, therefore, as a methodological limitation, are confined to KADEM. Nonetheless, the capacity of both the localizers and the rejectionists to influence government position regarding gender equality has changed over time. This study offers a theory-informed explanation of such an account and the empirical findings will enrich our understanding of the extent of local contestations during norm reception.

The article is divided into three sections. The first section introduces the theoretical grounds of the research and explores local rivalries and normative fragmentations during norm reception. The second section surveys the making of conservative normative order as a divided setting and reviews the historical course of intra-conservative bloc contestations on gender equality in Turkey, upon which localizer and rejectionist positions emerged. The third and final section examines how the intra-group rivalry works and how the rivalry is relevant to the shifting government positions on gender equality. The analysis in the paper is based on primary sources, including reports, press releases, public statements and newspaper articles of conservative norm localizers and rejectionists.

Divided normative orders and rival responses to norm reception

Norm diffusion has retrospectively been taken as a process by which local domestic norms become replaced by global norms, and thus local normative orders become attuned to the global normative order (Cortell and Davis, 2000; Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Klotz, 1995). This is particularly observable in the way the global dissemination and functioning of the norms of human rights, democracy or development are described. Several mechanisms have been identified as part of a quest to advance our understanding of the functioning of these replacement and attunement processes, featuring the role of entrepreneurial agency, means or routes of mobility, or strategies of framing and promotion (Checkel, 2001; Payne, 2001; Risse et al., 1999). The recent literature, prompted by post-colonial and post-structural research agendas and through featuring the agency of the local, more often studies the plurality of the local responses to the global norm processes and endeavours to unpack the reactionary character of the local reception of global norms (Acharya, 2004; Bodur Ün, 2019; Capie, 2008; Chua, 2017; Draude, 2018; Steinhilper, 2015; Tabak, 2021; Zwingel, 2012). In line with this scholarly leaning, this research is an elaboration of some of the reactionary and resistant responses to norm diffusion. Since it empirically endeavours to understand the intra-conservative bloc contestations and fragmentations on how to respond to the global gender norms in Turkey, the research conceptually deals with the communication and fragmentation between rival reactionary responses present within the same normative order in the norm-receiving local context.

In the historical context, the norm scholarship thought resistance as something to be eventually eliminated through socialization (internalization) and material motivations (Checkel, 2001). This tendency was a result of a research agenda that overwhelmingly focused on the processes of compliance. The recent critical norm scholarship has successfully demonstrated the contested nature of the process of compliance and the prominence of rival entrepreneurial endeavours for resolving or maintaining the contestation (Bloomfield, 2016; Wiener, 2014). It has also documented the development of local institutional mechanisms for weakening the application of the diffused norm (Capie, 2008), the utilization of counter-normative grounds for eliminating the dominance of the powerful norm-imposing orders and actors (Acharya, 2011), and the fostering of resistances to the externally imposed semantic control over the local normative order during adoption (Großklaus, 2015). Therefore, norms are received and contested in the receiving locality in diverse forms and reactionary responses are a defining component of this process.

This research contributes to this line of thought by suggesting the plurality of the normative orders in the norm-receiving localities and relatedly of even the responses from-within each normative order to the in-coming norm. Multiple agents participate in the local reception of global norms, and they generate plural responses, with each response utilizing the in-coming norm in their own defence of or challenge towards the already existing normative status quo. This is the case whether the global norm in discussion is transmitted through institutional governmental channels or through local transnational borrowing. And this is the ground contestation governs the local reception of global norms: rival normative orders (agents) contest for institutionalizing or resisting to the in-coming norms, they project differing implications of the global norm for the pre-existing normative status quo, they thus attribute competing meanings to the norm-in-circulation. Out of this contestation, depending on the power balance between the competing agents, a compliant, resistant, localizing or rejecting institutional official response stems, without necessarily a need for the contestation to be resolved.

In the production of these plural responses, along with the fragmentation within the local normative order, contestations within the sub-local normative orders (power blocs) may as well be imperative. The normative or strategic power blocs may fail to produce a compromise on how to respond to the in-coming norm or there may be a constant need for a new compromise. Together with the broader normative plurality in the receiving locality, this intra-group contestation may even be responsible from the simultaneous operation and circulation of rival responses to the diffusing global norms and from the persistence of rivalry even though an official (dominant) response is formed. In the case where the division-experiencing order is the one the government is part of, the presence of competing intra-group discourses may be consequential for the government response or government positioning may change the power balance between the competing intra-group agents or discourses. The empirical examination of this study will shed light on this relationality. In line with this, the rest of the article endeavours to uncover the formation and persistence of the rivalry within the conservative bloc in Turkey regarding the responses targeting the official reception of the global gender equality norms in the country.

Conservative normative order – the making of a divided setting

The conservative bloc represents a religiously motivated, atavistic and equally religio-nationalist political voice and cultural front in Turkish politics, yet it by no means a uniformed voice nor generates costumed responses to political, economic or social issues in the everyday politics of the country. There definitely is a discursive plurality, deep normative contestations and rival positions within the group, popping up in instances where political interests or creedal beliefs and interpretations clash. This is the ground this article explores a fragmentation within the conservative normative order as the defining basis of the rival and conflictual responses to global norms. This division manifested itself, for instance, in the formation of the conservative responses to global gender equality norms – well beyond the secular versus conservative divide, as simplistically thought in considering the political positions in Turkey in response to the global gender regime. The actual communication within the conservative front is more diverse and complicated. This section overviews the plurality and complexity of the conservative responses to gender equality in the country and the rivalry between the responses in the historical context.

The 1990s was an era to observe the dividedness and discursive plurality within the country regarding gender equality. Accordingly, the broader feminist challenges (including liberals and ethnic feminism of Kurdish women) popular in the country at the time targeting the Kemalist equality approach – that maintained the patriarchal attitudes, values and norms in society and gendered duties in the family despite legally abolishing the segregation of the sexes – were joined also by the religious conservatives (Diner and Toktas, 2010: 47). Women’s groups and organizations from various backgrounds, including the conservatives, contested and renegotiated the dominant Kemalist version of localized equality norm. Socialist and radical feminists have understood gender equality as related to women’s autonomy, bodily integrity, rights and choices and have supported positive discrimination towards women to transform the sexist norms of society. For these groups, women’s oppression in the private sphere and gendered norms rendered legal equality in the public sphere meaningless (Arat, 1998; Bodur and Franceschet, 2002; Diner and Toktas, 2010; Negrón-Gonzales, 2016). They, thus, articulated counter-interpretations, formed alternative gender narratives and advocated competing visions of gender equality in their endeavour for ending the exclusionary attitudes towards some groups of women. The conservatives complementarily defied the Kemalists’ merely valuing the visibility of unveiled, educated and professional women in the secular public sphere and strategically excluding the covered women and their demands for difference and equality (Göle, 1997). They even questioned the traditional interpretations of Islam on gender and defended appropriating modern egalitarian values based on both equality and women’s difference (Aksoy, 2015: 156; Arat, 2016; Simga and Goker, 2017). However, such an appropriation was not welcomed by all conservatives, who are acting as the members of anti-modernist social forces stamping every step taken for the sake of women’s empowerment as a cultural decline since the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman era, the initial point of Turkish modernization (Scotti and Roma, 2021: 3–4).

The opposing positioning within the conservative camp on gender equality was not a defining characteristic for the conservatives at the time yet. With a religious conservative government’s coming to power in 2002 with a liberal and equally traditionalist agenda (later proved to be an unfitting blend and took the form of rigid conservatism), however, this dividedness of the conservative camp regarding gender issues became more evident and manifested itself in the mainstream of in-group political discussions. The pro-equality group (the then localizers) in the conservative camp was prone to formulating a traditionalist egalitarian framework (gender justice) and this reconciliatory role once coincided with the liberal-inclined policies of AKP. The anti-equality group (the rejectionists), however, fiercely condemned the egalitarian approach and their voice got resonated in government policies in the second half of the 2010s.

Conservative localizers and the making of gender justice

Gender justice is an institutionalized version of the traditionalist egalitarian thinking of the 1990s. It represents both a local and conservative reinterpretation of the global gender equality norm and also a challenge to the idea that the global equality discourse was simply confirming the validity of the Kemalist secular progressive gender politics. In the making of it, some conservative women’s organizations played an essential role, KADEM being the most influential of them. KADEM’s close links with the ruling AKP has been necessary a feature all along. KADEM supports the pro-family conservative policies of the government, yet also plays an important role in articulating and disseminating an alternative narrative on women’s rights – gender justice – through organizing summits and conferences, publishing an academic journal and preparing public statements on important gender issues of the day. Under a conservative government and in a context where ‘the secularly localized gender equality lost its status as a state-sponsored localized norm’ (Tabak et al., 2022; Koyuncu and Özman, 2018), KADEM’s gender justice perspective came to be considered as the new state-sponsored local norm in the 2010s.

With gender justice, KADEM draws attention to three interrelated problems associated with the gender equality norm (Aydın Yılmaz, 2015). First, for KADEM, the norm of gender equality failed to end women’s oppression around the world. This was because equality is necessary yet ‘not sufficient for the procurement of justice in the social, political, and economic lives of women and men’ (Aydın Yılmaz, 2015: 111–12, 115). Gender justice, however, is more comprehensive than gender equality and it does not reject equality but rather comprises it (KADEM, interview, 13 January 2020; Şişman, 2004).

Second, KADEM’s norm localizers argue that (liberal) feminism’s insistence on ‘equality as sameness’ puts women at disadvantage and would ultimately force women to be like men, rejecting their own distinctive feminine identity (KADEM, 2015), alternative would be regarding them as ‘two equivalent entities with the same essence, complementing each other’ (Aydın Yılmaz, 2015: 112). The relationship between men and women, thus, is understood in terms of difference and complementarity rather than equality (Bodur Ün, 2019: 842). Therefore, for KADEM, the idea of gender equality, which ignores biological differences between men and women, prevents them from sharing gender roles in a ‘just’ and ‘fair’ way, so in that sense, equality may pave the way to injustice. To overcome this, gender justice calls for acknowledging the equality in difference of men and women by which both sexes would be equipped with diverse rights and responsibilities fitting to their nature.

Third, for KADEM, the notion of equality belongs with a different (i.e. Western) normative belief system, as it is blind to contextual differences across societies and relies mostly upon a single feminine identity which is predominantly Western (Aydın Yılmaz, 2015: 108–109; Bodur Ün, 2019: 841). This is because global gender equality is a ‘by-product of the historical conditions prevailing in the Western societies which were highly discriminative towards women’ (KADEM, interview, 13 January 2020). Thus, KADEM has presented the vision of equality not only as a ‘Western import, which does not fit into non-Western normative contexts, but also as an inferior one, as it fails to acknowledge women’s fıtrat (inherent qualities)’ (Bodur Ün, 2019: 841). Within this very scope, KADEM’s norm localizers have reconstructed ‘gender’ to match it with the Islamic normative order and by doing so, they have compromised its core attributes, using the term to mean fixed social roles and biological differences between males and females (Bodur Ün, 2019: 843).

Despite supporting the government’s pro-family discourses and policies, KADEM does not view women only as part of the family but also as individuals with rights, including the right to employment. This is the case although KADEM views family as the foundation of society. Accordingly, the organization rejects the male-dominated conservative view that ascribed women traditional gender roles, demanding women to be only good mothers, wives and caregivers, devoted only to their families (see KADEM, 2021a). KADEM’s norm localizers are themselves educated, politically active, professional women, with access to government institutions, public projects and funding (Bodur Ün, 2019: 835). By establishing a women’s organization, they have been participating in the social and political life of the country. Thus, they defy the traditional image of religious women as headscarved, dependent, uneducated and confined to the domestic sphere of the family. Within this scope, for KADEM (2021a),

Woman cannot be compelled to define herself with social and economic stereotyped roles imposed by society. She cannot be forced to work in anticipation of economic gain, nor can she be humiliated for not working. Likewise, women who are not mothers/cannot become mothers cannot be seen as deficient and inadequate.

In short, gender justice is presented as ‘a superior concept’ – superior from the global gender equality norm – for at least three reasons: first, it comprises equality; second, it is local or national as it develops out of local conditions, recognizing that women’s experiences and demands are not universal, and last, but not least, it acknowledges the feminine qualities (fıtrat) of women.

Before moving on to the rejectionist position, a clarificatory discussion is required on the concept of gender justice. KADEM’s gender justice is promoted as a local norm, more precisely a localized version of gender equality, and apparently has certain peculiar meanings attributed to it. Yet, the concept of gender justice is long in circulation, particularly within the critical development studies, with an emphasis over the distributive justice and welfare issues. The concept has been often utilized to draw attention to the failures of the global gender equality initiatives in addressing the injustices from which women suffer, particularly in the non-Western world emanating from the lack of women’s access to and control over resources (Molyneux and Razavi, 2002; Terry, 2009). The concept has also been articulated in legal means in defining women as a suppressed and vulnerable group – by which the injustices or the victimhood women experience in armed conflicts or in everyday violence (including wartime rape and other forms of sexual violence and gender crimes) are addressed (McKay, 2000). Apparently, KADEM’s interpretation of gender justice does not have much in common with broader usage of gender justice. Yet, it should also be noted that although KADEM is eager to suggest, as an ethnocentric move, that gender justice is an authentic initiation of them, we see that KADEM’s formulation of gender justice shares a common ground with the post-colonial reflections on the relationship between gender and Islam or Muslim societies. In the latter studies, gender justice is used to draw attention to the similarities between the racial discrimination the colonial or apartheid regimes imposed and gender-based discrimination the Muslim societies imposed. So, it is an activist call for the emancipation of Muslim women from culturally justified social, political and economic oppression and it suggests that gender justice cannot be realized without gender equality (Fraser, 2007; Raines and Maguire, 2001). Despite the overlaps, KADEM is confident is suggesting the originality and authenticity of the concept and its direct relevance to the realities of the local context. As a methodological note, we hold that the meanings of the norms are in a constant making and remaking, thus if the norm entrepreneurs argue that their interpretation is local, we take it as they say; this is because only through this way, we become able to observe their norm politics – what they do with ‘gender justice’ is more important for us than whether ‘gender justice’ is truly local or can objectively be defined as a local norm. For us, the entrepreneurs’ framing is a key in considering a normative initiation as a practice of localization. And since KADEM frames its efforts as so, we take their position and study what they do with such a framing. Besides, gender justice, in KADEM’s use, is full of references to Islamic culture and traditions peculiar to the Ottoman past of the country – the family the gender justice refers to is quite different from the family structures in for instance the Arab world (such as polygamy).

Rejectionists and the demonization of the gender agenda

Rejectionists of the global gender norms do so as part of a broader conservative ethics that is built on a self-attributed responsibility to preserve the native normative and cultural qualities of the country. The group holds a morally justified scepticism and distrust towards outsider norms and their promoters and sacralizes the local ones. They are mostly religious nationalists with firm reliance on an atavistic narrative of the civilizational legacy of the Islamic and Ottoman past of the country – so the norms that qualify to be protected and to be locally authentic are the traditional and religious ones. Regarding gender norms, the rejectionists historically disapproved the Westernized or Europeanized gender politics due to its localizing alien norms and frames and imposing them on the Muslim people of these Muslim lands. They equally denounced the feminist endeavours in the country, adopting a hostile attitude towards the feminists’ plea for equality between women and men. For rejectionists, gender equality claims were targeting and harming the traditional and equally sacred gender roles. The feminists were also viewed as the local collaborators of global cultural invaders (the West). The adoption of the global gender equality norm was accordingly labelled as an anti-Islamic attitude. In the 1990s, particularly during the 28 February coup era, the rejectionist voice was oppressed so it was far from shaping the public opinion. However, with the AKP’s coming to power their target shifted from antagonism towards feminism per se to gender and all the issues related to it (Martinsson, 2020). They, however, became very vocal in advocating their positions publicly only concomitant to a general societal shift towards conservatism towards 2010s (Çarkoğlu and Kalaycıoğlu, 2009).

There are several grounds of the rejectionist critique. First and foremost, rejectionists object to imagining gender identity as an output of a societal construction process. This conception of gender has been found in a big clash with, as they understand it, the God-given and biologically grounded qualities (fıtrat) and identifiers of gender. Thus, by accepting the perspective of the social construction of gender, the global gender equality norms invalidate the natural and biological differences between males and females. This is the ground, to the rejectionists, the global gender norms are contributing to the normalization of some ‘abnormalities’, such as the recognition of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (LGBTIQ) people and their human rights – a ground well served later to the rejectionists’ demonization of the Istanbul Convention (Balcı, 2020b: 16).

Second, global gender norms are found biased by the rejectionists as they are based upon the experiences of Western women and, yet, are promoted as universal. (Here, they share a common ground with the localizer conservatives). This is closely linked with the rejectionists’ resistance to the globalization process, which, to them, operates in the form of global impositions over local cultures. Accordingly, the rejectionists have shown fierce resistance to the diffusion of global gender norms into the Turkish context and to their adoption as a state policy, as this diffusion would produce some unwanted social transformations, such as distancing women from their traditional roles or weakening the obedience of women to the authority of men and ethical decadence through the erosion of Islamic or national values (Balcı, 2020b: 10). In this vein, the signing of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW), the ensuing annulment of the men’s status as head of family, the elimination of all sorts of legal differences between women and girls, the signing of the Istanbul Convention, gender equality projects of the Ministry of National Education and the Higher Education Council, the recognition of women’s testimony as the only evidence in cases of violence, and compulsory banning of alternative solution mechanisms such as family arbitration, have all been unwelcomed as the steps wrongfully taken to make Turkey more aligned with the Western or global gender norms (Doğruhaber, 2019).

Last but not the least, for the rejectionists, the implementation of global gender norms in the West has (allegedly) brought about severe societal problems, such as the dissolution of the traditional family life, along with the normalization of ‘the unnatural and abnormal’ notion of same-sex unions (Seriyye, 2019). To them, the institution of family has historically constituted the basis of society and has played a decisive role in empowering the individual against the harmful consequences of ‘deviant’ lifestyles. Muslim communities have, concomitantly, historically acknowledged family as the main reference for the organization of Islamic societies. The rejectionists consider family as the place in which women are equipped with rights, thus they refuse to single out women as individuals, but rather relate them to familial titles (Ürün, 2017). They claim to protect women through protecting the institution of family; and doing so required rejecting global gender equality norms (Eslen-Ziya, 2020: 6). The recent statistics showing decrease in marriage rates and rising divorce cases in Turkey are used by the rejectionists as evidence revealing the damages done by adopting the global gender norms in the country (Balcı, 2020a: 11). Therefore, for the rejectionists, in Turkey, there is an urgent need for an intervention to stop the harmful societal engineering caused by the global gender norms (Balcı, 2020a). Turkey’s retreat from all kinds of international agreements, which clash with the country’s and its peoples’ history, beliefs and traditions, is noted as a priority (Dilipak, 2019). Indeed, Turkey’s recent decision to retreat from the Istanbul Convention has been welcomed and seen as a victory.

In resisting the implementation of global gender norms, rejectionists have put the above listed critiques into circulation through the media and their publications. They have prepared thematic reports to convey their messages to the government. The popularity of the rejectionist discourse enhanced and gained wide media coverage during the debates around the Istanbul Convention, which the group has vehemently opposed to. Along with the above-discussed criticisms, the rejectionists employed populist discourses condemning naming a deviant convention with the city of Istanbul, which is viewed as a holy Muslim city and the heart of Turkey (Balcı, 2020b; Gerçek Gündem, 2021: 73).

Similar to the concerns regarding gender justice’s authenticity and locality, rejectionist arguments’ locality may be considered as contested, as rejectionism’s prescriptions (familialism) have long been raised in the form of anti-gender ideology – as a form of right-wing resistance and opposition to global equality agenda on gender and sexuality (see Corredor, 2019; Paternotte and Kuhar, 2018) – all over the world and there exists a discursive similarity between the rejectionists and global anti-gender movements. We should say that the rejectionists’ denouncing gender equality and equally gender justice is an authentic attempt, a local invention justified with reference to their own interpretation of Islam. This, however, does not mean that they do not share a ground with the global anti-gender movement or with other anti-gender Islamic interpretations in other parts of the world. We shall explain this dilemma with reference to a methodological debate in culture anthropology – diffusion versus independent invention. We believe that while anti-gender ideology is in global circulation, the Islamist rejectionists in Turkey mostly independently invent their critiques and their anti-genderism. The shared anti-genderism, however, is a result of their sharing a world view: conservatism. It is conservatism mostly leading the anti-gender perspectives to be independently invented globally – it is again conservatism limiting the diffusion of anti-gender ideology. Considering that the rejectionists in Turkey are mostly radical conservatives, they think for instance of Vatican in an exclusionary manner and they would not publicly admit that they borrow their gender ideology from or are in an alignment on anti-genderism with the Vatican and other radical Christian conservatives. This is because they are mostly exclusionary in their conception; thus despite the possibility of borrowings, at least in terms of discursive strategies employed in refuting feminism or gender perspectives, we believe that the rejectionists independently invented their anti-genderism (see Çağatay, 2019; Özkazanç, 2019). Therefore, the normative fragmentation within the conservative bloc is triggered by locally invented positions, other than borrowed ones – both norm localizers and rejectionists produced local responses.

Intra-conservative group rivalry and shifts in government position

This section serves two purposes. First, it shows how the intra-group rivalry works, second and relatedly, it elaborates the relevance of this rivalry to the shifting government positions on gender equality.

Intra-group contestation

Until the mid 2010s, the localizers enjoyed a discursive, institutional and political hegemony in conservative voice on gender discussions. The rejectionist voice was strategically marginalized. However, AKP’s shifting its position to radical conservative lines under the influence of external and internal factors, including the rising confidence coming from the successive electoral successes (Gümüşcü, 2013), worsening relations with the European Union (EU) and waning credibility of the EU as a role model (Aybars et al., 2019), paying more attention to different foreign policy routes as the alternative of the traditional predominantly Western-oriented perspective (Öniş, 2011), adapting a governance perspective combining Islamism with nationalism and showing an anti-Western and anti-European inclination (Colella and Kürüm, 2021: 30), rising influence of the neoliberal policies which are curbing the state’s role as care or service provider (Uzgören, 2021), emergence of a global climate of populism which is not conducive to the advancement of the gender equality (Kantola and Lombardo, 2020). This shift opened a window of opportunity for the rejectionist to take over the conservative agenda on gender in their favour. The intra-group contestation, however, continued between the rejectionists and the localizers all along. In the running of the contestation, rejectionists endeavoured to defame and delegitimize gender justice, while the localizers campaigned for eliminating the doubts and misunderstandings within the conservative bloc regarding gender justice and for proving their loyalty to the conservative ideology.

The rejectionists suggested that gender justice is not an authentic norm due to its recognition, defence as well as promotion of the gender ideology. For the rejectionists, such an approach to the global gender norms contributes to the local legitimization of ‘the abnormalities’, such as the recognition of LGBTIQ identities and rights, the acceptance of the third gender or any attempts to erase the differences between women and men. Thus, gender justice has been viewed sceptically, as part of an international conspiracy, a.k.a. the Soros Project that operates worldwide to allegedly eradicate the institution of family (Türkiye Yazarlar Birliği, 2019). Relatedly, despite the conservative localizers’ presenting gender justice as the culturally appropriate version of, and thus superior to, gender equality, with a capacity to overcome its innate problems, it has been widely associated with a hidden demand for gender equality by the rejectionists. Gender justice has been said to be creating a conceptual confusion to ensure the acceptance of gender equality without any societal resistance (Balcı, 2020b: 43). Thus, gender justice has been categorized as anti-Islamic and alien to the prevailing values of the Turkish society just like the global gender equality norms, while the conservative localizers have been identified as the main local collaborators of the so-called Soros Project benefitting from national and international funds in return of their support (Gültekin, 2020).

Moreover, for the rejectionists, there is a discursive similarity between gender justice and feminism, especially in terms of gender justice’s adherence to the goal of women’s empowerment (Dursun, 2019). Focusing on this similarity, the rejectionists have even labelled the norm localizers as ‘green feminists’, who are betraying the Islamic values and becoming slaves to the feminist ideology (Dilipak, 2019). To them, the conservative localizers have been disseminating feminist biases against men – such as the images of men as oppressors using violence against women or disregarding rights of women – and constructing and promoting a new kind of women, who are in search for power, actively participating in the economic, social and political life of the country and struggling for being equipped with ‘more rights and freedoms’. This conception, to the rejectionists, has the potential of producing harmful consequences for the family (and men’s authority) by putting women into conflict with their husbands, fathers or brothers (the traditional figures with reference to which Muslim women gain agency; Medyascope, 2019). According to Sema Maraşlı, a prominent rejectionist figure, KADEM, as the leading voice of the conservative norm localizers, failed to come up with a distinctive Muslim women’s discourse, challenging secular and liberal women organizations’ gender equality agenda (Maraşlı, 2016).

Conservative localizers, in their defence, responded to the rejectionist delegitimation by showing that their approach complies with traditions (they are loyal to conservative ideology) and even cherishes the Muslim women and family (eliminating the misunderstanding; Milliyet, 2020). For them, the rejectionists favour the dominance of patriarchal tendencies giving no room for women’s emancipation (Arat, 1998: 130), by means of humanly created norms and structures perpetuating male oppression (Mir-Huseini, 2004: 4). Accordingly, this extremist interpretation ignores the egalitarian message of Islam and provides justifications for the unequal treatment of women. Yet, the egalitarianism of conservative localizers would not suggest that they have a liberal feminist agenda on issues such as LGBTIQ. To them, against the rejectionist claims, their use of the concept of gender cannot be seen as a support for ‘abnormal’ sexual orientations; it rather expresses the various roles associated with being women and men (KADEM, 2019). Relatedly, for the localizers, defending the cause of women’s empowerment is not enough to be labelled as feminists – so they do not consider themselves feminists, attributing feminism a pejorative meaning.

As a recent development though and as an institutionalized response reiterating their stance on women’s rights and responding to the criticisms of the rejectionists, KADEM has announced a ‘declaration of principles on women’s rights’ in March 2021. Adopting the slogan ‘equality in creation, justice in responsibility’ (varoluşta eşitlik, sorumlulukta adalet), KADEM (2021a) has restated and further clarified its vision of gender justice:

Men and women are equal in essence. They have inalienable fundamental rights, and individual and social responsibilities. These fundamental rights include protection of the integrity of the soul and body, freedom of religion, thought and speech, ensuring the continuation of the family and generation, and the right to property. In this context, men and women are responsible to each other. There is no social hierarchy between men and women at the point of realization of responsibilities with justice. Different areas of liability do not affect the principle of equality.

The emphasis on equality here is a reference to the rejectionists’ denying the heavenly rights bestowed upon women. Confirmingly, KADEM’s vice President, and President’s daughter, Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar has recently pointed out in an interview that

It is a very fundamental truth that women are equal to men in creation and, also before the law. But we cannot say that this is accepted by the society in general. Even though there is verbal acceptance, through the mistakes in practice, we see that it is mostly not internalized. (Yeni Şafak, 2021)

To Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar, furthermore, in relation to this failure in internalization, there exists ‘a strong resistance based on prejudices’ in a certain segment of society (i.e. rejectionists) with regard to women’s rights:

[For the group/rejectionists] with this mentality, which is accustomed to seeing women as inferior [to men], the argument that women should have a say in all areas of society cannot be easily and gladly accepted. (Yeni Şafak, 2021)

As a development making the intra-conservative bloc rivalry, contestation and even polarization on gender equality evidently observable, the Istanbul Convention deserves a special mentioning. The Convention, which was signed and ratified by Turkey, is the first legally binding document on preventing and combating all types of violence against women. The conservative localizers supported the ratification (2012) and later legal implementation of the Convention. Yet, rejectionists fiercely refuted the entire process and associated the Convention with the approval of homosexuality and same-sex marriage and with the elimination of the traditional family structure (T24, 2020; Yetkin, 2020). Thus, the localizers, as the conservative defenders of the Convention, became more susceptible to the discursive attacks of the rejectionists (Akit, 2020).

When the issue of withdrawal from the Convention caused a serious public debate in the summer of 2020, the localizers and rejectionists took part in this debate as the two opposing sides. Localizers’ effort to persuade the AKP government to stay committed to the Convention regime was severely detested by the rejectionists and seen as an act of collaboration with the anti-Islamic forces sanctifying the Convention (Kaplan, 2020). Despite the rejectionists’ making them the target of a public and governmental detestation, KADEM staunchly supported the Convention – as they prominently did since its inception – and issued a public statement, responding to the criticisms raised against the Convention (KADEM, 2020). Pointing to the articles of the Convention, KADEM (Interview, 13 January 2020, 2021b) refuted the claims of the critics, arguing that the Convention neither weakens the institution of the family nor promotes homosexuality. To KADEM, the Istanbul Convention is an important instrument for combating violence against women and towards the rejectionists’ call for also annulling the Law No. 6284, the domestic law formulated based on Istanbul Convention, following the decision to retreat from the Convention, KADEM’s vice President, Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar, argued that

There is a group of people who understand, and inclined to think, that the termination of the Istanbul Convention as the annulment of the Law No. 6284, which regulates the fight against violence against women. Especially, an adoption of such a perception by the practitioners, who combat violence in the field, might have dangerous consequences. Public officials and NGOs should show a special sensitivity to prevent any mis-implementation of the Law No. 6284. (Yeni Şafak, 2021)

In short, despite the rejectionist efforts, KADEM (2021b) pledges to continue to combat violence against women by strengthening existing legislations, such as the law no. 6284, something confirming their commitment to their localizing mission.

Shift in government position

The polarization between the localizers and rejectionists over the Istanbul Convention took place in a moment when the power balance between them (in terms of representing the conservative voice) and their capacity to influence governmental policies have significantly changed. Following the governmental shift towards radical conservativism, the divided structure of the conservative bloc on gender have had reflections in government positioning; since the rejectionist and the localizer conservatives have had like-minded collaborators within the AKP cadres they both involved in moulding the public and government opinion. For instance, while AKP’s deputy chair Numan Kurtulmuş supported Turkey’s withdrawal from the Convention (Hürriyet Daily News, 2020), some other members including Özlem Zengin, the deputy chairman of the AKP group at the Turkish Parliament and AKP MP Canan Kalsın openly supported the Convention (Duvar English, 2020). The Erdoğan family as well has become divided on gender concern in due course – while Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar maintained her standing, her father, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shifted his position entirely.

Successive AKP governments’ policies over the past decade have shifted away first from gender equality and then from gender justice. The first shift was a conservative challenge to the secular normative status quo in the country and often thought as a move in line with the government’s conservative democratic ideology at the time. Yet, the latter was a transition within the conservative normative order; a shift from moderacy to radicalism as part of which the government took severe backward steps from the previous reforms, which were carried out to make the country to be more aligned with the global gender norms.

Thus, the governmental reception of global gender equality norms was once quite welcoming. As a political party aiming to secure support from all segments of society and taking lessons from the previous political experiences of the Islamists in Turkey, AKP used an inclusive discourse going beyond the secular versus religious societal and political divisions in the country. AKP’s initial choice for being highly integrated with the West also guided its gender positioning in the first decade of the 2000s. After the EU’s historical decision to recognize Turkey as a candidate for the membership in 1999, Turkey made extensive reforms in the period of 1999–2005 to meet the Copenhagen Criteria, which was v1ery vital for the initiation of the accession negotiations. Eslen-Ziya and Umut (2010: 321) identifies this great transformation process as the last chain of the Turkish modernization project. Reforms for EU membership carried out on the basis of gender mainstreaming approach (Uzgören, 2021: 118) and they clearly symbolized a new phase regarding women’s rights in Turkey, primarily with the changes in the legal framework, namely in the Penal Code, Civil Code, Labour Code, Family Law, and Municipality Law (Bozkurt, 2007: 24–25). A lot of progressive steps, such as the supremacy of men within family ended and the penalties given to the sexual offences were severed, were taken to eliminate the patriarchal norms from the existing legislation (Scotti and Roma, 2021: 5). The freedom zone of women extended extensively with these democratic reforms pioneered by AKP (Koyuncu and Özman, 2018: 1). These reforms were even identified as the most progressive ones since the Kemalist reforms of the 1920s and 1930s (Kandiyoti, 2010: 174). Hence, AKP became one of the pivotal actors actively contributing to the entrenchment of the global gender equality norms in the Turkish context. Yet, through its discourses and policies, AKP also pursued its pro-family, pro-natalist, neoliberal and conservative agenda, which reinforced traditional gender roles and norms (Bodur Ün, 2019; Buğra, 2004; Cindoğlu and Ünal, 2017; Coşar and Yeğenoğlu, 2011; Kandiyoti, 2016). As the reliability of EU membership ideal waned down, the importance attributed to the gender equality diminished and the EU norms lost their capacity of being the main point of reference in the regulation of Turkish gender space. The government became selective towards the global gender norms at first. Then it shifted towards the conservative lines by losing its gender equality agenda to a great extent (Aybars et al., 2019) and took steps which are labelled as de-Europeanization or de-democratization due to the retreats from women’s rights (Eslen-Ziya and Kazanoğlu, 2020: 2). The absence of gender equality perspective in the policies caused doubts and unrest at the EU side about the progress of the country towards the EU membership (European Commission, 2020).

The governmental support for the institutionalization of gender justice took place within this very scope and despite the high level of personal devotion of the AKP cadres to the Islamic values in their self-identification, AKP had not attempted to redesign the Turkish gender space through radical conservative lenses until the 2010s. Nonetheless, by the mid 2010s, the AKP governments have increasingly adopted a more conservative policy line as a result of some internal (i.e. a high level of concentration of power with an extensive control over military, judiciary and various parts of the bureaucracy, the 2013 Gezi protests and the 2016 failed coup attempt) and external developments (i.e. ongoing clashes with the West in several foreign policy matters, alleged Western support to the threats targeting the AKP governments; Durán and Veiga, 2017: 47). Religious conservatism (even nationalism) has become a channel for AKP to communicate with the voters to consolidate its electoral base as well as a survival strategy to eliminate the threat coming from other attractive conservative alternatives, such as the newly established political parties of some ex-AKP leading figures.

After the transformation of AKP into a religious nationalist conservative political actor, a great majority of the issues related to gender or women have been confined to the category of family, and familialism has emerged as the new gender regime of the country (Yilmaz, 2015: 379; Nas, 2016). There have been frequent references to the sacredness of the family, and the protection of the family unity has been located at the centre of the governmental discourses and policies. The party constructed the family as a zone securing the reproduction of heterosexual, Turkish, married couples with conservative lifestyles (Cindoğlu and Ünal, 2017: 43). Also, the issues of abortion and birth control, incentives to marry, women’s employment and familial positioning of women as care providers have all been widely discussed and mostly found their places in the legal acts (Arat, 2016). By this way, the ideal Turkish woman has been radically redefined.

In short, for the last couple of years, the gender space in Turkey has completely lost its equality perspective and anchor, and the ability of global gender norms and gender justice to shape the Turkish gender space has been reduced detrimentally. In the current political agenda of AKP, the global gender equality norm is treated as an extreme ideology and a desire for a world against Islam (Eslen-Ziya, 2020: 4). Concomitantly, conservative rejectionists publicly articulate their desire for a complete eradication of the global gender norms from Turkey. A conservative rejectionist journalist, Abdurrahman Dilipak’s plea for a retreat from CEDAW can be read from this angle (Dilipak, 2021). Yet, KADEM, along with secular and liberal feminist women organizations, pledges to continue for its struggle for women’s rights, assigning itself the important role of ‘bringing the women’s rights debate on a healthy ground’ – healthy referring to gender justice (Yeni Şafak, 2021).

Conclusion

The story of the reception of the global gender equality norms in Turkey confirms several propositions of the critical norm research regarding norm diffusion – the norm-receiving locality is an active participant of the diffusion process and the in-coming global norm both goes through local reconstructions (in diverse forms) and leads to normatively defined strategic contestations. This research, moreover, introduced a novel domain of inquiry for the norm diffusion research – taking the local normative order in the receiving locality in plural in the form of rival sub-local orders, re-reading resistance or responses to the global norms from within them, and elaborating the way the intra-group contestations shape the responses.

Our examination of the Turkish case unpacked that the local responses to the global norm processes vary, guided by local power play between rival normatively organized power blocs. Some utilized the in-coming norm to maintain the historically existing normative status quo (in favour of the secular order), while others did so to challenge it (the conservatives). Localization here became a strategically employed tool both to preserve and equally to resist to the historical standing order – coming out of this contestation is at least two distinct forms of localized norms. The normative contestation in the Turkish case was not therefore between the externally coming norm (global gender equality) and the existing dominant normative order (the secular gender norms). The latter was seen accordant to the former, turning the global norms in the hands of the seculars a means to tackle the dissident normative orders (i.e. conservative order). Nonetheless, once the power balance between the seculars and the conservatives shifted in favour of the latter due to change in government, this time the conservatives made use of the global gender norms to tackle the secular normative order. Yet, their localization practice was also a form of resistance towards global norms.

Along with leading to a power play between rival local normative blocs (secular vs conservative), which was extensively covered in the literature concentrating on the gender issues in Turkey, the global gender norms also caused fragmentation within them, and the intra-group contestations led to rival reactionary responses towards the global norm. This research documented the making and the functioning of the division within the conservative normative order. Such contestation, due to the concentration of governing power in the hands of the conservatives, has become increasingly important in terms of understanding the recent dynamics of the global gender norm reception process in the country. Nonetheless, the contestation within the conservative bloc was due to the surfacing of opposing views regarding the Islam’s view of gender in the 1990s, and relatedly the failure in reaching a compromise on how to respond to the global gender norms led to rival conservative responses to the diffusing equality norms by the 2000s. The conservative localization of the equality norm (gender justice) gained institutional backing and governmental support until the mid 2010s, yet the shift in government position triggered a shift in power balance within the conservative bloc, the rejectionist position has enhanced its dominancy in shaping the country’s response to the global gender norms since then. Changing governmental and public discussion on the Istanbul Convention made this more observable. However, the accessible data were not suggestive of to what degree the government positioning was influenced by the intra-conservative bloc contestation. Yet, we have seen that the government positioning was consequential for the power balance between the competing intra-group agents and discourses.

In conclusion, studying the fragmentation in the receiving normative order and the rivalry in response to the incoming norm is proved to be imperative for observing how global norms are truly received in the local context and how their reception changes over time – the global gender equality norms have been received in diverse ways in Turkey and the governmental position has changed over time, yet from a compromising acceptance to rejection.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Hüsrev Tabak

Author biographies

Hüsrev Tabak is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Recep Tayyip Erdogan University in Rize, Turkey. His research focuses on norm reception/diffusion, transnationalism, methodological cosmopolitanism, and ethnopolitics. Some of his recent work has appeared in Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, Global Society, Peace Review, and Uluslararası İlişkiler/International Relations.

Seven Erdoğan is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Recep Tayyip Erdogan University in Rize, Turkey. Her research agenda mainly focus on the various aspects of the European integration. In recent years, she added gender and migration to her research portfolio.

Marella Bodur Ünci is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Çukurova University, Turkey. Her research interests include gender and politics, social movements, norm contestation, and migration. Her recent work has been published, among others, in JCMS-Journal of Common Market Studies, Review of International Studies and Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space.

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