Do certain religious attitudes promote economic development? Or is it the other way around: does development lead people to embrace interpretations of their faith that make it compatible with their enrichment? The question is an old dilemma of social theory and the debate will remain inconclusive.
In 2000, the Harvard historian David Landes published an essay on development entitled "Culture makes almost all the difference," taking Max Weber as his reference point. Landes defends Weber's thesis of the Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism against its many critics. It is a fact, he argues, that in early-modern northern Europe, "religion encouraged the appearance in numbers of a personality type that had been exceptional and adventitious before, and that this type created a new economy that we know as industrial capitalism." To illustrate the relevance of the argument today, Landes refers to contemporary history: "One could have foreseen the postwar economic success of Japan and Germany by taking account of culture. The same with South Korea versus Turkey."
The argument is not new. Arthur Lewis, a leading 20th-century development economist, argued that some religious codes were more compatible with economic growth than others. Discussing Muslims in India, Lewis suggested that the way Islam was practiced was inimical to development, encouraging fatalism and suppressing innovation. In Turkey, secularists went further and said successful development requires the retreat of Islam.
In September 2005, my think tank European Stability Initiative published a report entitled "Islamic Calvinists—Change and Conservatism in Central Anatolia." The study tells the story of the transformation since the early 1980s of Anatolian trading towns and rural economies into prosperous manufacturing centres. It is about the rise of a new urban middle class and the emergence of Muslim industrial districts in Turkey's heartland. It also seeks to answer a question that many observers have posed in recent years: why does the Erdogan government (in office since 2002), which has roots in political Islam, pursue both pro-market reforms and European integration with the backing of people in central Anatolia?
We describe a central Anatolia where economic success and social development have created a milieu in which Islam and modernity coexist comfortably. The practice of Islam in Turkey, we noted, has in fact undergone the quiet reformation that so many had argued was impossible. We describe numerous central Anatolian entrepreneurs who believe that "to open a factory is a kind of prayer."
The report created a media storm in Turkey, with some arch-secularists strongly disapproving. Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, declared himself to be an Islamic Calvinist in several interviews. As tensions between the EU and Turkey rise again—and whispers of a military coup return—the question of the compatibility of Islam and modernity in Turkey remains a controversial one. Those Islamic Calvinists of Anatolia must not go unnoticed.
The report "Islamic Calvinists" is online at www.esiweb.org
