Search

This paper investigates the new character of the strategy of the Republican People's Party (CHP) using populism to combat the success of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). We consider populism along a left-right axis in terms of the differentiation of exclusionary and inclusionary approaches and conduct a content analysis of campaign speeches by Ekrem İmamoğlu during the 2019 local elections, as well as speeches of the party elites given during the currency crisis of 2018 and the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that an alternative to the exclusionary right-wing populism may construct images of egalitarianism, participatory budgeting, and agrarian populism instead of mobilizing security or survival issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact the European Union (EU) accession process has had on Turkish political parties—the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—as far as their internal structures and intra-party distribution of power are concerned. The paper contends that political parties in Turkey have not only been immune to any organizational adaptation that may have resulted from the accession process, but in the past decade, they have become increasingly de-Europeanized. This insularity from Europeanization impulses can be attributed to Turkey’s personalized political system and the ineffectiveness of the parliamentary institutions responsible for EU policy, especially the EU Harmonization Committee. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rise to power of the socially conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002 seemed to mark a shift in religion–state relations in Turkey, away from a Kemalist agenda of laiklik. This paper seeks to analyze to what extent do the socially conservative AKP's policies toward religion constitute a shift away from those of the Kemalist Republican People's Party (CHP)? The findings of this analysis reveal how unifying notions of Islam, employed by both the CHP and the AKP, often undermine meaningful differences, whether they are ethnic, linguistic, or religious. An examination of the transcripts of the Parliamentary debates on the Alevi matter from 2002 to 2012 reveals that the AKP is markedly similar to Kemalists in its approach to religion–state relations. Like the CHP, the AKP privileges a totalizing interpretation of Islam in order to promote national unity, but as this paper argues, it does so at the expense of nonconforming religious communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative impacts of social influence and political party affiliation on electoral choices depend on the maturity of the political party system. In established democracies political party affiliation has a decisive impact on electoral choices whereas in democratizing countries political discussion influences over-time volatility in electoral outcomes. This paper investigates the significance of both factors on individual attitudes toward political candidates in Turkey. Findings from an experiment where social disagreement and candidate political party affiliation are manipulated indicate that young voters are sensitive to both partisan cues and socially supplied disagreement in forming and changing their attitudes toward political candidates. The results also show that, unlike most developing countries with weak parties, party label in Turkey is an important heuristic for making electoral choices. However, social disagreement can make political attitudes unstable. The findings suggest that Turkey presents us with a case in between the developed country voters' iron clad partisan attachment and the developing country voters' high susceptibility to socially communicated persuasive messages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Marketing activities have a significant impact on aims and objectives of companies. This situation has also drawn the attention of political parties. Marketing methods and techniques have been used by political parties under "political marketing" during their election campaigns which became very important for them. Political parties have tried to inform voters about their leaders, candidates, service and promises by meetings, rallies, advertisements and news. In this paper, initially, the relation between marketing and politics is examined and political marketing mix elements are explained. In the research part of this study, it has examined the role of Ulus and Zafer newspapers communicating the political products of Democratic Party and Republican People's Party, which joined at 1957's election, to voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government has initiated a number of democratic opening initiatives to tackle with the Kurdish question, the Alevi question, the Roma question, and the minorities question. This paper focuses on the reaction of the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP) to the initiative. It seeks to explain the CHP's reaction through the concept of "electoral hegemony", which refers to a situation where one party becomes an uncontestable actor in the electoral process, which, while weakening the possibility of the opposition parties winning elections, also weakens the faith and trust of their supporters that these parties could govern Turkey through winning elections. It is argued that the CHP's reaction to the democratic opening initiative is in fact directly related to its need to respond effectively to the electoral hegemony of the AK Party, and that it has developed its response through the concept of sovereignty which has always been integral to its historical identity as the main carrier of the state-centric Turkish modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests four hypotheses of “losers' consent”—that is, the extent to which evaluations of democratic governance are shared by citizens who voted for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the winner at the 2007 Turkish elections, and those who voted for the opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). It uses survey data about governance evaluations from the 2007 Turkish Election Study. The evidence rejects the idea that losers withhold consent, creating polarized pluralism. It gives some support to a winner's effect. It finds a substantial degree of similarity in views of governance across party lines. Differences between voters for the two losing parties are sometimes greater than differences with the AKP. Regardless of dissatisfaction with some features of governance, there is an overwhelming consensus rejecting a change of regime to military or Shari'a rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]