Religious identity and participatory individual: Identity politics and the rise of political Islam in Turkey

Despite widespread criticism, the concept of identity is still a convenient tool. Recently, there has been a growing debate over various identities, chiefly within the context of Turkey's EU membership. Yet, there is a lack of empirical evidence. In this study, religious identity, political participation and grassroots activism will be examined The concept of political participation was a popular concept that had emerged in the 1960s. However, the majority of studies had focused on conventional politics such as voting. In the meantime, the participation of members of the political parties, especially that of the active ones and the factors that lead these people to actively participate in politics were overlooked It has been observed that there is a close connection between the rise of pro-Islamist WP (and Virtue and AKP) and militant grassroots activists within this movement.