Focusing on three important interrelated issues, Women and Civil Society in Turkey challenges the classical definition, developed in the West, of civil society as an equivalent of the public sphere in which women are excluded. First it shows how feminist movements have developed a new definition of civil society to include women. Second it draws attention to the role of women in the modernization of Turkey with special reference to the debate on the possibility of an indigenous feminist movement. Finally, it underlines the contribution of feminist, Islamic and Kurdish women's movements in the transition from an ideologically constructed, uniform public sphere to a multi-public domain. Giving attention to the influence of diverse women's movements over Turkish political values this book sheds light into the issue of how a feminine civil society has been constructed as part of a plural public space in Turkey. A-mer Aaha argues that this new public realm is the product of values and institutions which have been developed by diverse women's groups who have succeeded in eliminating the traditional barricades between public and domestic spheres and in steering women into public life without sacrificing their own values.

Focusing on three important interrelated issues, Women and Civil Society in Turkey challenges the classical definition, developed in the West, of civil society as an equivalent of the public sphere in which women are excluded. First it shows how feminist movements have developed a new definition of civil society to include women. Second it draws attention to the role of women in the modernization of Turkey with special reference to the debate on the possibility of an indigenous feminist movement. Finally, it underlines the contribution of feminist, Islamic and Kurdish women's movements in the transition from an ideologically constructed, uniform public sphere to a multi-public domain. Giving attention to the influence of diverse women's movements over Turkish political values this book sheds light into the issue of how a feminine civil society has been constructed as part of a plural public space in Turkey. A-mer Aaha argues that this new public realm is the product of values and institutions which have been developed by diverse women's groups who have succeeded in eliminating the traditional barricades between public and domestic spheres and in steering women into public life without sacrificing their own values.

The author draws attention to the strong state tradition and the pluralistic society that both prevailed in Turkey. He argues that the Turkish state tradition envisages centralization, social cohesion and an obedient political culture. Through the modernization process of the last century, it has tried to change the society from top to down, and built an ideological and unitarian public sphere. However, the transition to multi-party system in 1950 and the liberalization policies that followed in the post-1980s have prepared the ground for different social movements to come into existence in the same public arena. Social movements which developed particularly among Kurds, Alevis and women emphasize social diversity, pluralism, participation, limited authority, freedom and human rights. They, thus, have paved the way for the transformation of the ideological public sphere into a plural and a civil public domain. The author follows the traces of all these developments from the Ottoman Empire to the last decades of the Republican Turkey. Moving from the case of Turkey he makes an important contribution to the literature on various issues such as civil society, public sphere, modernization, democracy, and social movements.