Beginning with the aftermath of the 2016 attempted coup in Turkey, Contesting Pluralism(s) challenges a widespread tendency to limit studies of Turkish-and Muslim-politics to 'Islamist vs. secularist' or 'Islam vs. democracy' debates. Instead, Nora Fisher-Onar's innovative argument centres coalitions for and against pluralism. Retelling Turkey's story from the late Ottoman empire to the present as a tale of pluralizing vs. anti-pluralist coalitions, this book offers an alternative explanation for major outcomes from revolutions to coup d'etats. Here, cross-camp alliances pit those who are willing to co-exist with 'Other(s)' against those who champion a unitary, national project in which everyone speaks, believes, looks and loves as they do. Drawing on a rich array of primary and secondary data, Fisher-Onar introduces an analytical framework for capturing causal complexity in political contestation.

This study rejects Orientalist exceptionalism, re-reading the relationship between political religion, pluralism and populism via a framework which travels across and beyond the Muslim-majority world.