Beyond Muslim Identity: Opinion-Based Groups in the Gezi Park Protest
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Date
2017
Authors
Baysu, Gülseli
Phalet, Karen
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sage Publications Ltd
Open Access Color
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Abstract
Media depicted Turkish Gezi Park protests as a clash between secularists and Islamists within a majority-Muslim country. Extending a social identity approach to protests this study aims (a) to distinguish the protest participants in terms of their opinion-based group memberships (b) to investigate how their religious identification and their group membership were associated with democratic attitudes. Six hundred and fifty highly educated urban young adult participants were surveyed during the protest. Latent class analysis of participants' political concerns and online and offline actions yielded four distinct opinion-based groups labeled liberals secularists moderates and conservatives. Looking at the intersection of the participants' group identities with their Muslim identification we observed that the higher conservatives' and moderates' religious identification the less they endorsed democratic attitudes whereas religious identification made little or no difference in liberals' and secularists' democratic attitudes. Our findings of distinct groups among protest participants in a majority-Muslim country challenge an essentialist understanding of religion as a homogeneous social identity.
Description
Keywords
Collective action, Democratic attitudes, Grievances, Muslim identification, Online activism, Oopinion-based group, Protest, Social identity
Turkish CoHE Thesis Center URL
Fields of Science
Citation
22
WoS Q
Q2
Scopus Q
Q1
Source
Volume
20
Issue
3
Start Page
350
End Page
366