Abstract

This article theorizes conscience as a political principle in the context of polarized democracy, examining its strategic articulation in the rhetoric of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu between 2010 and 2023. While existing scholarship on polarization and majoritarianism has focused primarily on identity politics and institutional erosion, less attention has been paid to the moral vocabularies through which opposition actors reconfigure democratic legitimacy. Drawing on conscience and theories of secularism, this study conceptualizes conscience as a mediating category that unsettles the binary between religious authority and secular reason. Through qualitative discourse analysis of parliamentary speeches, campaign addresses, and party documents, the article demonstrates how conscience is framed simultaneously as transcendent and universal—invoked as divinely resonant yet politically inclusive. I argue that this formulation constitutes a heterodox model of religion–politics relations that departs from both assertive secularism and majoritarianism. By privileging individual moral deliberation over collective identity claims, Kılıçdaroğlu articulates a liberal-pluralist alternative aimed at depolarizing democratic contestation. The findings contribute to political theory by advancing an account of conscience as a performative and strategic resource in democratic struggles. More broadly, the study offers a framework for understanding how moral rhetoric can be mobilized to foster democratic resilience in deeply divided societies, with implications extending beyond the Turkish case.

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