Carkoglu’s lecture “Turkish Elections 2007: A Beginning or an End of an Electoral Process?” addressed the future of Turkish democracy and the pivotal role of the 2007 elections. Carkoglu’s main points of discussion were the determinants of voting behavior in Turkey and the significance of Turkey’s push to join the European Union (EU).

Since its inception as a modern state in 1923, Turkey has remained staunchly secular, due to a series of reforms enacted by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state. During his lecture, Carkoglu emphasized the importance of Turkey’s democracy stating that there “simply is no other democracy in the region with an almost total Muslim population,” and that “Turkish elections could thus be seen as the only exemplary experiment in the way democracies face and resolve their problems in difficult Middle East environments.”

Carkoglu remarked that the 2007 Turkish elections reflect a significant turning point in the nature of Turkish democracy. In recent years, political parties with religious ties have become increasingly accepted by the general public, and the election of Abdullah Gul as president showed the change in Turkish attitudes over the past few years. Gul belongs to the same party as Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Ergodan, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has its roots in Islam.

Although the 2007 elections raised fears about the election of a predominantly non-secular government, Carkoglu does not believe that the move away from a non-secular government necessarily means a move towards religious involvement in government. In fact, said Carkoglu, the number of people who approve of practicing Shari’a, a Quran-based Islamic system of law, in Turkey is down from 22 percent to eight percent. Although an Islam-based party The AKP does not support more involvement of religion in the state either. In fact, one of their goals for Turkey is gaining entrance into the EU. The move has significant support throughout Turkey’s population because of the boost it would give the economy. “That’s what EU does for a country, said Carkoglu, “it anchors you into such a solid institutional setup that the foreign investors want to invest. It is for the first time that we see that an Islamist rooted party now has the second highest level of support for the EU cause. I think that this is revolutionary in Turkish history.”