Choice Review

This is a timely and needed study of one of the most interesting and significant developments in the political history of Turkey. The victory of the Justice and Development Party, or AK Party, in November 2002 caused a political earthquake. The AK Party's victory did away with 80 years of staunch nationalist, secularist party rule. Espousing an antinationalist (anti-Kemalist) Islamist discourse, it became the first one-party majority in 15 years. The 13 contributors to this volume, 10 of them Turkish, assess and analyze the reasons for the AK Party's surprising victory and its potential for maintaining its dominance in the 2007 elections. Most of the contributors think the party has great potential for doing so if it continues to moderate its Islamic discourse, fulfills EU admittance criteria, and implements a multilateral foreign policy. The authors also urge reaching out to the country's Kurdish minority while maintaining good relations with the US and Israel; this could be very difficult, given current events in the Middle East. This is an important study for all scholars and persons interested in Turkish politics and the evolution of democracy in Muslim countries. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. R. W. Olson University of Kentucky