Why is the Gülen Movement made up of service networks?

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In everyday life, intimate interpersonal relations and emotional relationships with those closest to them allow individuals to make sense of their world through networks.

Interpersonal interactions and affective bonds are the fundamental background to movement participation. Through the service-networks people become more able to reach out to other systems, relations, meanings, goals and interests. Without such networks, it is not possible for most people to reach out to all these on their own.

Several researchers have measured self-efficacy and find that the more active movement participants are, the more assertive, self-confident, energetic, and effective they are in using their capabilities, as compared to those who are less engaged in activism.

The Movement exhibits a unified identity based upon beneficial services for all, and is organized in networks because the relationships in the Gülen Movement are not hierarchical, mechanical or predetermined. This way, one group or network does not impose on others a greater burden of limitations or liabilities. The networks allow a relationship of autonomy and interdependence.

How do individuals and groups in the Gülen Movement “make sense of their world through networks”?

Individuals and groups have come together in the Movement to make sense of their being in togetherness and in action.

They recognize and sustain the meanings, values and plurality of aspects that they find in being and acting together. They share orientations that bind actors and the specific way of acting together through time. They share, within the opportunities and constraints, what is produced by their work. They share also the definitions of legitimate goals and ways of achieving them, the field in which they are working, and what sort of investments they can make in a project and what rewards they can expect. These continuous processes become a network of active relationships between actors who interact, communicate, influence each other, negotiate, and make decisions.

In fact, people can participate in the service-projects and institutions of the Gülen Movement at various levels of commitment and with different degrees of involvement. To be sure, a shared identity characterizes the Movement as a whole. But different levels of affiliation of participants and non-participants with the service-projects and SMOs make the identity of the Movement open and inclusive.

Networking, participation and affiliation within the Gülen Movement are not alienating or sectarian because the Movement is open to the outside world, and it does not have or seek a totalitarian organizational structure, but instead has and seeks compatibility with other collective actors and civil society bodies. The Movement is not restricted to a certain time and place (or territory). However, this inclusiveness has no negative effect on the homogeneity or effectiveness of the service-projects.