Governing Gendered Subjects through Political Islamist Discourses: A Social Policy Analysis on Gender-based Violence in Turkey

Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to examine how political Islam as an ideology of the Turkish state has constructed gender roles and influenced gender-based violence in Turkey. The political Islam, as a term, refers to a broad political movement. My focus of interest is the political Islam as advocated by the Justice and Development Party and its discourses shaped within this ideology. In order to investigate the research interest of the thesis, policy discourse analysis is conducted within the National Action Plan- Fighting against Family Violence and it is strengthen by examples of the party members’ media statements on the issue. A theoretical framework of poststructuralist feminism, Foucauldian notions of power, subject, subjectivication and theory of governmentality constitutes a meaningful background for the analysis and fits well with the methodological approach. Findings of the study suggest that political Islamist discourses function as ‘technologies of power’, as the ways that enables the Justice and Development Party to govern women and men as gendered subjects, reconstruct traditional gender relations, legitimize subjectivication of women to men and perpetuate gender-based violence. Yet these findings are not clear-cut, since there may be other dimensions behind the perpetuation of gender-based violence and reconstruction of traditional gender roles.