This study aims to scrutinize Turkey’s uneasy democratization process during the post-Helsinki period (1999-2010). The research design of the thesis takes the form of a single case study as it seeks to critically link Turkey’s democratization problems with the wider theoretical literature on secularism, post-Islamism and democratization. Rather than witnessing the clear-cut victory of liberal democracy over non-democracy as espoused by Fukuyamian eschatology, the advent of the Post-Cold War Era witnessed the proliferation of hybrid grey zone which stood between the continuum of democracy and conventional non-democracy. As a result, many scholars opted to construct ‘hybrid regime typologies’ in order to capture the incongruous yet enduring coexistence of partially democratic and non-democratic features within each political unit. In line with contemporary developments in the democratization literature, this thesis opts to construct a multi-dimensional hybrid regime typology for the case of Turkey. Besides seeking to capture the core regime principles of the Kemalist one-party dictatorship (1923-1946) under the label of ‘laic-ethnocracy’, the theoretical framework of the thesis provides an assessable normative benchmark for delineating Turkey’s democratization trajectory since the initiation of the multi-party era (1946-1950). After demonstrating how Turkey’s successive ‘controlled transitions’ (1946-1997) consistently aimed at perpetuating ethnocratic hegemony and obstructing the democratic transformation of incompatible aspects of the Kemalist laicism, the thesis seeks to scrutinize the impact of the EU candidacy in shaping the pattern and outcome of the recent democratization process in the domestic arena. In this respect, the thesis underlines how the ongoing political ‘transition process’ during the post-Helsinki decade (1999-2009) qualitatively differs from all of the previous transitions which had been guided and forcefully controlled by traditional Kemalist state elites. Yet, the thesis also exposes the limited and partial commitment of the post-Islamist AKP government to forge the democratic transformation of Turkey’s enduring ‘laic-ethnocratic’ regime paradigm namely by assessing its reform performance towards the cultural rights of ethnic and belief-rights of the non-Sunni Muslim minorities (e.g., the sizeable Kurdish ethnic and Muslim-Alevi religious minority). Overall, the thesis characterizes Turkey’s ‘post-Helsinki transition’ process as a case of uneasy democratization. In this context, the term ‘uneasy democratization’ does not only highlight the inconsistencies of main domestic political actors in forging clear-cut democratic transformation of Turkey’s enduring ‘laic-ethnocracy’ regime paradigm, but also to a chronic failure to soothe the deeply-seated cleavages within the socio-political arena.

En Turquie, la question de l’identité est au cœur de bien des problèmes. Après la période de Mustafa Kemal qui a tenté d’imposer une définition de l’Etat, laïc et turc, celle-ci n’a pas résisté à la disparition du fondateur de l’Etat-nation.Les années qui ont suivi ont vu l’arrivée du multipartisme au pouvoir et l’apparition d’une autre définition de l’identité turque, supposée créer un consensus au sein de la Nation turque : la synthèse turco-islamique. Les heurts et les tensions ont montré les limites de la définition étatique de l’identité turque et les années dites de plomb ont été dominées par deux forces nationalistes, l’Etat-profond et l’ultranationalisme des Loups gris, mouvement d’extrême-droite. L’affaire de Susurluk a permis de voir émerger une nouvelle tendance, le nationalisme des Ulusalcilik d’inspiration laïque, mais aussi le néo-ottomanisme, avec l’arrivée au pouvoir de l’AKP et l’émergence d’une nouvelle identité, plus large : Türkyeli (ou de Turquie). Mais les conflits au Moyen-Orient et le glissement de l’AKP vers un régime islamiste, brouille une fois encore l’identité nationale. / In Turkey, the Identity question is the crux of the issue. After the period of Mustafa Kemal who gave a definition of the State, secular and Turkish this one didn’t resist to the death of the founder of the Nation State. The year which followed, saw the emergence of the multiparty system to the power and the birth, of an another definition of the Turkish Identity, creating a consensus within the Turkish Nation: The Turco-Islamic Synthesis. The clashes and the tensions showed the limits of the State definition of the Turkish Identity during the “Lead Years” (1960-1970), a period dominated by two nationalist strengths, the Deep-State and the ultranationalism of the Grey- Wolves, the extreme-right movement. The Susurluk Affair allowed to see the birth of a new tendency, the nationalism of Ulusalcilik of secular inspiration, but also a neo-ottomanism, with the coming of the AKP and the emergence of a new wider identity: Tiirkyeli, that means “to be from Turkey”. But the conflicts in the Middle East and the sliding of the AKP towards Islamism, blurs once more the national Identity.

This dissertation considers how twentieth century British lyric poets, in continuing the traditional relationship between religion and poetry, respond to changing expectations and assumptions about poetry’s role and power—changes directly related to ongoing social processes of secularization. By combining recent critical insights from secularization theory and lyric theory with close readings of poems, essays, and letters from British poets, this dissertation shows that due to social changes that cohere around World War I, poets like Wilfred Owen, Mary Borden, and David Jones confront an unsettling of traditional strategies of lyric enchantment. This unsettling both imperils the legitimacy of lyric poetics and opens new opportunities. Poets such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and H.D. subsequently engage in strategies of deliberate re-enchantment to justify wide-ranging vocations, while the later Eliot, David Jones, and Elizabeth Jennings confront the limits of re-enchantment but still imagine the poetic vocation as connected to religion. In every case, this dissertation shows that lyric re-enchantment (as a distillation of the aesthetic itself) is fundamentally ambiguous; it is necessarily secular and immanent, yet it continues to imply a transcendence that can easily be put to religious or even supernatural ends. The lyric is thus a genre that uniquely registers the opportunities and challenges for the aesthetic in a secular age.

Syftet med denna kunskapsöversikt är att sammanställa vad forskningen säger om hur elever talar om religion samt hur talet påverkar undervisningen. Vår empiri består av vetenskapliga artiklar och myndighetsdokument primärt mellan åren 2011 till 2019 med fokus på en svensk och norsk kontext. Materialet analyseras och diskuteras i förhållande till den svenska skolan och lärarpraktiken. Resultatet visar bland annat att talet påverkas av en sekulär norm, av huruvida klassrummet upplevs som tryggt samt att konflikter lätt uppstår i friktionen då olika religiösa värderingar yttras.

Values are inherent within cultures, relationships, and many other systems, however, little study has been done on the extent to which individuals may explicitly agree with the metaphysical assumptions that much of psychological science relies upon. Psychological science, which uses scientific methodology, is a trusted source of knowledge for many students. Scientific methodology is conceptually linked to assumptions of naturalism, which makes claims about the truth of reality. These naturalistic assumptions pertain to ideas of disenchantment, which describe the world as free from any transcendent quality. These same ideas have become popular among people of the Western world and are foundational to the worldview of secularism. Accessing whether, and to what extent, individuals explicitly agree or disagree with ideas of disenchantment inherent within secularism may help to better understand relationships between cultural, educational, and spiritual beliefs, and the underlying presumptions of psychological science. A measure of 30 items in length was created in order to evaluate the extent to which individuals agree with statements about some of the foundational assumptions of secularism as it relates to naturalism. A random sample of online participants (N=395) completed the items through an online survey platform. A 1-factor model provided sufficient statistical fit for the data, suggesting that items appeared to support the idea that this measure addresses attitudes of secularism, however no claims on the validity of the measure in the current study can be made. Suggestions for future study are provided.

abstract: This work examines the spectrum of Christian attitudes toward yoga as demonstrative of contemporary religious imagination in recent United States history. With the booming commodification of yoga as exercise, the physical and mental elements of yoga practice are made safely secular by disassociation from their ostensible religious roots. Commonly deployed phrases, "Yoga is not a religion," or even, "Yoga is a science," open a broad invitation. But the very need for this clarification illustrates yoga's place in the United States as a borderline signifier for spirituality. Vocal concern by both Christians and Hindus demonstrates the tension between perceptions of yoga as a secular commodity and yoga as religiously beget. Alternatively embracing and rejecting yoga's religious history, Christian yoga practitioners reframe and rejoin yoga postures and breathing into their lives of faith. Some proponents name their practice Christian Yoga. Christian Yoga flourishes as part of contemporary religious and spiritual discourse and practice in books, instructional DVDs, websites and studios throughout the United States. Christian Yoga proponents, professional and lay theologians alike, highlight the diversity of American attitudes toward and understanding of yoga and the heterogeneity of Christianity. For religious studies scholars, Christian Yoga advocates and detractors provide an opportune focal point for inquiry into the evolution of spiritual practice, the dynamics of tradition, experience and authority, and the dialectic nature of evolving cultural attitudes in a religiously plural and complex secular environment. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Religious Studies 2014

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The relationship between Sweden and religion serves as a case of how its secular mode of governance has become an increasingly pervasive ideology that is not only encroaching on the rights of its religious community but is also on a mission to produce a homogenous civic nation, rather than allowing for plurality. Through its increased regulation of religion, particularly evident within the area of education, the case is made by focusing on Christianity and its differing values. A discourse analysis of the two most authoritative documents, the Education Act 2010 and the National Curriculum of Compulsory Schools 2011 is conducted. Based on the theoretical assumptions of social constructionism, this research seeks to make the case that through the state’s authoritative power, its ideologies and values are the most dominant in directing, determining, and maintaining the discriminatory and oppressive structural and social context.  Through critical discourse analysis (CDA), which posits that language and discourse are not ‘neutral’, this research finds there is a deliberate project on the state’s part to bring about the secularization of its faith-schools. The texts sustain a social system that ‘others’ the religious and discriminates against their ways of life and thought. The analysis of the Education Act 2010 and the National Curriculum display a very strong bias toward secular thought that is not accommodative of religious beliefs, values and practices. These documents display through its restrictions, allowances, its inclusions and exclusions, an attempt on the part of the state to create an education context which is devoid of religion and enforces one worldview, that of secular liberal thought and seeks to socialise students in this way. This, in its essence is in fact ‘illiberal’

The idea of the present thesis initiated with a seemingly innocent and simple question: How has the relationship between secular Iranian writers and the country's religious tradition developed following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and establishment of the Islamic Republic? This thesis is being crafted at two main levels: the first part aims to discuss the dynamics of the literature field, mostly regarding religion and tradition in the post-revolution era, while the second part aims to look more closely into the works and discourse of Hushang Golshiri (1938-2000). Therefore, this thesis places itself within the study of Iranian literature in its alternative modernization/secularization. The thesis argues that after the revolution of 1979 in Iran, discourse of literary modernity developed in a way to provide a more active involvement with religion and tradition by a group of so-called "secular writers". This involvement has led to a kind of a "reconstruction" of the relationship between modern Iranian literature and religion, in pluralistic, novel, and seemingly secular ways. / 博士(グローバル社会研究) / Doctor of Philosophy in Global Society Studies / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University