Legitimacy, Efficiency and Power in Institutional Change: The Islamization of the Secular Civil Law in Turkey

Earlier institutional analyses focused on the impact of institutional rules and regulations on individual behaviors and so socio-political processes and outcomes. Having such a concentration, those studies neglected the origins of institutions and the changes in the existing institutional arrangements. Given this over-emphasis on institutional stasis or inertia and resultant relative inattention to institutional change, an increasing number of studies in relatively recent institutional literature have examined various aspects of institutional change. In line with this growing scholarly interest in the shifts in the existing rules and regulations, this study also focuses on institutional change and raises the following questions: Why and how do formal institutions change? What roles do legitimacy, efficiency and power play in formal institutional change? To answer these questions, this study examines a controversial formal institutional reform in Turkey: the religionization of the secular civil marriage by the conservative AKP government (i.e. the reform of mufti marriage in 2017). The study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative data, derived from parliamentary discussions, official statements and interviews at the elite level; and focus groups and a nationwide survey (Informal Institutions in Turkey Survey, TEKA 2019) at the mass level. This study shows that actors might have diverging assessments of the legitimacy and efficiency of the existing rules and regulations. Hence an institutional order usually involves tensions and contestations among pro-status quo and pro-change agents. This particular case confirms that the outcome of these tensions is largely shaped by power relations among relevant institutional actors.