“If you can’t beat them – join them”: explaining Milli Görüş movement’s views towards the West

Abstract

The National Outlook Movement (Millî Görüş), a prominent Turkish-Islamist movement which previously held strong anti-Western views, moderated its views towards the West in the 1990s. With an examination of Millî Görüş documents from 1973 to 1995, this study sheds light on the dynamics of this shift in view and argues that one aspect of this ‘tilt’ towards the West was the geopolitical realities – mainly the collapse of the USSR and the rise of US hegemony. While the current literature on the moderation of other similar Islamist movements around the world throughout the 1990s largely cites internal and national level explanations for moderation and leaves out the geopolitical argument made here, the case of the National Outlook suggests that geopolitical influences can also play an important role and further research is needed on other Islamist movements to understand the effects of the changing geopolitical context.