Studying autocratization in Turkey: political institutions, populism, and neoliberalism

Abstract

In this review article I classify the literature on the Turkish political regime during Justice and Development Party rule as two waves of studies, and a potential third wave. The first wave was prevalent at least until the Gezi uprisings in 2013. I argue that, in this wave, the main debate was between two rival and largely culturalist perspectives with conceptual toolkits that tended to interpret regime change through the lens of social transformations. I also maintain that scholarly works written from the hegemonic perspective of this wave, utilizing center–periphery and state–society dichotomies, and a narrow range of concepts from the democratization literature (from defective democracy to democratic consolidation), have misidentified/misinterpreted burgeoning autocratization in Turkey as democratization, albeit with problems. The Gezi uprisings brought to the fore already existing authoritarian features of the Turkish political regime and led to the second wave of studies. In the second wave, the focus was on naming Turkey’s new political regime as a diminished subtype of authoritarianism, and thick descriptions of different facets of Turkey’s new authoritarianism. Finally, I suggest that there is a need for a third wave that builds on recent studies and focuses on explaining Turkey’s autocratization process and democratic breakdown, as well as the impact of autocratization on other aspects of Turkish politics and society.

Vatandaşlığın Dönüşümü: Türkiye’de Farklı Vatandaşlık Normlarına Eğilimler

“…Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), iktidara geldiği ilk dönemde yukarıda tartışılan demokratikleşme yolunda attığı adımlar sonrasında popülist ve otoriter bir dönüşüm yaşamıştır (Başer & Öztürk, 2017;Öktem & Akkoyunlu, 2016;Somer, 2016) ve bu, siyasi kültürün dönüşümüne etki etmiştir. AKP hükümetinin halkın demokratik iradesi üzerine inşa edilen çoğunlukçu bir anlayışa dayanan popülizmi (Özbudun, 2014;Sözen, 2020;Aytaç ve Öniş, 2014;Dinçşahin, 2012), zamanla "rekabetçi otoriterlik" (Castaldo, 2018;Esen ve Gümüşçü, 2016) veya hibrid rejim (Öniş, 2016) olarak nitelendirilmiştir. AKP'nin "otoriter neoliberal" politikaları ile yürütmenin merkezileştirilmesi ve muhalefetin kriminalize edilmesi gibi stratejilerle yasal ve idari rollerini güçlendirdiği ve halkın katılımını engellediği tartışılmıştır (Borsuk vd., 2021).…”

Introducing the Turkey Protest, Repression, and Pro-Government Rally Dataset (TPRPGRD)

“…The mass protests were unexpected for the government, resulting in repressive measures against the democratic right to protest (Atak and della Porta 2016) and leaving eleven casualties and 189 arrests behind (Welle 2016;International Federation for Human Rights 2014). Studies have suggested that the AKP started to take a more authoritarian turn after the Gezi protests to deter similar incidents of mass opposition (Sözen 2020). Shortly after protests spread to the entire nation, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the then prime minister of the government, said 'we are barely keeping 50% of the population at home' (Hürriyet 2013), implying that the other half of the population that is supposedly supported the AKP government was not on the streets demonstrating yet was ready to show support for the government instead.…”

Populist attitudes and challenges towards liberal democracy: An empirical assessment of the Turkish case

“…For example, the result of the 2010 referendum further curtailed the independence of the judiciary (Kalaycıoğlu, 2012). Also, especially after the 2013 Gezi uprising, the government's suppression of personal rights and freedoms heightened (Sözen, 2020).…”