Research

We study the relationship between political polarization along the Islamist–Secularist cleavage and religiosity in Turkey. We find that political polarization decreases religiosity and that this relationship is robust to various measures of polarization and estimation models. While the effects of polarization are significant throughout Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (the AKP) rule, the secularizing impacts of political division have accelerated since 2014. These effects are driven by partisanship: while Secularists have become more distanced from religion, their AKP counterparts have become more religious. Probing alternate mechanisms, we find that polarizing consequences are not driven by age effects, parental pressures, or social media use. We argue that our results reflect social identity dynamics and specifically the increased salience and polarization of 'Secularist' and 'Islamist' identities. This study shows how political polarization can drive social change in developing societies, initiating a short-term secularization process.