Religious Fundamentalism and Radicalization: How Nationalist-Islamist Party Politics Polarizes Turkey – and How Polarization Can Be Reduced

The reactivity hypothesis posits that individuals who are, or perceive themselves to be, deprived tend to develop a fundamentalist worldview and/or are more likely to (further) radicalize. In the present study, however, we predicted that individuals who feel less deprived would exhibit a stronger fundamentalist worldview and/or radicalized attitudes in a political context characterized by polarization driven by leaders or institutions such as governments. Using Turkey as an example, we found partial support for our hypothesis in a Muslim sample (N = 736), which was representative of age, gender, education level, ethnic affiliations, and urbanity. Individuals who felt less disadvantaged – thus more privileged – were found to be more fundamentalist, even when controlling for a range of other variables previously associated with fundamentalism, including conspiracy beliefs, personality traits, and socio-demographic variables. In contrast, deprivation was unrelated to radicalization (acceptance of active and reactive violence). Interestingly, supporters of the nationalist-Islamist government (AKP-MHP) scored on average higher on fundamentalism and radicalization than supporters of other parties. However, we also note that there are substantial similarities between both groups and that most participants scored low on both radicalization measures. Finally, we discuss possible strategies drawn from various studies aimed at reducing polarization and radicalization.