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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been in power in Turkey for over 10 years. Considering their performance during these 10 years, one would expect their political identity to have been clarified by now. This, however, is not the case. There are both inside and outside the country those who continue to label them as “Islamist,” although they have long rejected this label and declared to adhere to “conservative democracy.”
There is a broad consensus among Kemalists and Islamists in Turkey that a proper Muslim cannot be anything but Islamist and since Erdoğan is devoutly Muslim, he is by definition an Islamist. Even some who claim to be political scientists adhere to this conception. Abroad, there are understandable reasons why the Israeli lobby in the United States considers Erdoğan a hidden Islamist of the worst kind. It is rather ridiculous, however, that even some of the more sophisticated media outlets in the West continue to refer to Erdoğan as “mildly, moderately, slightly, occasionally” Islamist. This may also be due to confusion caused by some Western analysts who define Islamism in such a broad way that anyone devoutly Muslim becomes an Islamist.
But if Islamism is to be defined in a tangible manner, that is, as a political movement that aims to establish a state based at least partly on Shariah law and advocating for pan–Islamic unity and the elimination of all Western influence, Erdoğan and his party can be anything but Islamist. Erdoğan's government never attempted to adopt Shariah law. Far from aiming to eliminate all Western influence, it legislated reforms to fulfill the Copenhagen Criteria to start accession negotiations with the European Union. It never advocated Turkey moving out of the Western alliance and assuming the leadership of the Muslim world.
Erdoğan and many of his party members certainly have roots in the Islamist, National Vision movement, but at least since the founding of the AKP, they represent a mixture of influences from different ideological sources. Let's take Erdoğan. He definitely is a conservative politician in the cultural sense, being inspired by Islamic moral and social values. Yes, he sometimes blasts against alcohol consumption, abortion and cesarean deliveries, but has never initiated legislation to ban them. The AKP has in fact enacted laws to improve women's rights and women are surely assuming a growing role in Turkey's social, economic and political life.
Conservatism is far from defining Erdoğan's politics. He can fairly claim to be one of the foremost reformist leaders in the history of the Republic of Turkey. He has implemented reforms towards adopting EU norms, placed the military effectively under civilian control, put an end to the denial of Kurdish identity and improved the cultural and linguistic rights of the Kurds. He is currently leading an initiative towards a negotiated end to the armed insurgency led by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has cost 40,000 lives during the last 30 years.
In terms of economic policies that have helped considerably to improve living standards and earned him his election victories, Erdoğan can hardly be labeled anything other than liberal. He surely is also a nationalist, but certainly not in the sense of ethnic Turkish nationalism, rather in the sense of religious nationalism or patriotism reflected in his often stated ideal of making Turkey one of the 10 largest economies by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the republic. He may even be regarded as a Kemalist in certain respects, at least in his commitment to the state monopolizing and controlling religious affairs.
It needs to be understood that Erdoğan is not an ideological but a pragmatic politician, intent on pursuing policies he believes will serve the interests of the majority and assure him continued power. The increasingly authoritarian streak in his leadership may be viewed as a consequence of his conviction that the attainment of his ideals would not be possible without concentrating political power in his own hands. Some rightly define him as a “control freak.”