Department of Sociology2024-11-1020180002-960210.1086/6962632-s2.0-85047661576http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/696263https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/15894Nonwestern secularization has the reputation of an elitist project, but poetry milieus in 20th-century Turkey experienced secularization in a relatively inclusive manner. Using comparative-historical, network, and statistical methods, this article compares poetry milieus to novelistic milieus, whose secularization closely resembles the Turkish/Islamic stereotype. This exercise identifies a previously unnoticed role that interaction dynamics play in shaping secularization patterns. As such, western-nonwestern difference as regards secularization is neither fiction nor fate: it involves structures of interaction that may appear anywhere. These findings suggest a more Simmelian direction for future scholarship, broadly affirming the ascendant culturalist orientation in the sociology of religion while revising some of its particular claims. They also call for a civic republican turn: while tempering past scholarship’s vilification of the state, they suggest that a vibrant civil society is the more vital component of relatively inclusive secularization.SociologyJournal Article1537-5390428063300001Q11203