Ethnicity and Elections in Turkey attempts to understand the mobilization strategies of incumbent parties to consolidate and increase their support among swing voters of an ethnic group. By analyzing the strategy of AKP on voters of Kurdish origin, it investigates the conditions under which it can mobilize them through the clientelistic network and its effectiveness in increasing support for the party. This investigation is conducted through a district and neighborhood level case study conducted in the districts of Beyoğlu, Sancaktepe and Beykoz situated in Istanbul. The main hypotheses are tested through five different steps. Firstly, an examination of electoral results identifies a large number of voters of Kurdish origin as ideologically close to pro-Islamist and pro-Kurdish parties. Secondly, the book identifies the main organs responsible of mobilizing voters and defines the nature of the clientelistic network. Thirdly, the study suggests that the incorporation of these voters into the party’s clientelistic network is a function of the number and time of entry of activists of Kurdish origin in the party’s ranks and the intensity of their contacts with the voters. Fourthly, it reveals the effectiveness of clientelistic mobilization in consolidating and increasing support among swing voters of Kurdish origin. Lastly, the inner party organization and critical juncture experienced by the party are argued to be influential in its ability to increase its network through the incorporation of new activists. Providing an alternative explanation of AKP’s electoral success in Turkey, this book is essential reading for students and scholars with an interest in Middle East politics, political parties and political science.

Delving into Turkey’s political playing field, this book examines how an ethnic party increased its vote shares. The case study looks at the rise of the Kurdish party in Turkey’s 2011 national elections in relation to the mainstream political parties' strategies. The research explores the strategy of the dominant Justice and Development Party that garnered the majority in three consecutive elections, introduced a new political issue, and even initiated an opening process. Investigating the reasons behind why such a dominant party would put itself at risk with this bold strategy and why it still lost votes to the ethnic party in the process, the book traces Turkey’s handling of the Kurdish issue. Combining a detailed analysis of election results, speeches, and social survey findings, the volume offers a novel approach and a rare example of the application of process-tracing methodology. Additionally, the study is one of the first to utilize unsupervised model of scaling texts on the ethnic issue dimension. As the first systematic analysis of the Kurdish opening process, the book will be of interest to students and scholars researching in qualitative methodology, text analysis, ethnic and party politics, Turkey, and the Middle East.

The Kurdish Movement in Turkey’s growing alliance with Islam One of the fault lines of Turkish politics traditionally has been the divide between religious and secular movements. However, as Zeki Sarigil argues, the secular Kurdish movement in Turkey has increasingly become aligned with Islam. As a result, Islam has become part of the movement’s political discourse, strategies and actions. Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics traces the evolving relations between the leftist, secular Kurdish movement and Islam, from an apathetic and/or antagonistic attitude in the 1970s and 1980s to an increasingly Islam-friendly approach in the 1990s to an attitude of accommodation and the rise of Kurdish-Islamic synthesis in the early 2000s. Based on 104 interviews in several provinces in Turkey (primarily Ankara, Diyarbakir, Istanbul, and Tunceli) between 2011 and 2015 as well as ethnographic data, public opinion surveys and statements from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Kurdish leaders, Sarigil shows how the secular Kurdish movement increasingly has been endorsing Islam and Islamic actors. The reasons for this Islamic opening are global, national, and local; Sarigil demonstrates that a group of strategic and ideological factors have encouraged and/or forced Kurdish leaders to redraw symbolic and social boundaries of the movement. Namely, with the end of the Cold War support for Marxist ideas collapsed, creating increasingly more favorable responses towards religion. In addition, the movement’s need to expand its social basis and popularity; electoral politics; and legitimacy struggles against rival political actors were other major factors, which triggered the Kurdish movement’s boundary expansion (i.e. its Islamic opening). The study also shows that the Kurdish boundary making was not without any tension or contestation. The boundary expansion by Kurdish ethnopolitical elites triggered both internal and external boundary contestations. The movement’s embrace of Islam on a more widespread level has major ramifications for politics in Turkey and in the region. Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics has important insight into the PKK, modern Turkish and Islamic societies and highlights the increasing role of Islam in global politics.

"Turkey is a country with a history of multiparty electoral competition going back to 1950, longer than many other nations in the world. Until recently, it was often perceived as a model country that showed the feasibility of democratic governance in a Muslim-majority society. However, the rise of religious-nationalist populism and sociopolitical polarization has resulted in an authoritarian turn that has stifled political liberalization. Turkish foreign policy has had strong linkages with the West but now exhibits a more independent and assertive position. Turkish national identity remains exclusionary as citizens not belonging to the dominant ethnic and religious groups face various levels of discrimination. Political violence persists in the forms of state repression, insurgent attacks, and terrorism; nevertheless, Turkish civil society continues to be resilient. The economy has exhibited sustained levels of growth, though it remains vulnerable to crises. The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics includes in-depth analyses of all these issues in conversation with the broader scholarly literature on authoritarianism and democratization, political economy, electoral politics, the politics of identity, social movements, foreign policy, and the politics of art. With contributions by leading experts, the handbook is an authoritative source offering state-of-the-art reviews of the scholarship on Turkish politics. The volume is an analytical, comprehensive, and comparative overview of contemporary politics in a country that literally and figuratively epitomizes "being at the crossroads.""--

A fieldwork-based account of the role of populism, personalism and organisation in the rise of Erdoğan's JDP to authoritarian predominance.

Akturk discusses how the definition of being German, Soviet, Russian and Turkish radically changed at the turn of the twenty-first century. Germany's ethnic citizenship law, the Soviet Union's inscription of ethnic origins in personal identification documents and Turkey's prohibition on the public use of minority languages, all implemented during the early twentieth century, underpinned the definition of nationhood in these countries. Despite many challenges from political and societal actors, these policies did not change for many decades, until around the turn of the twenty-first century, when Russia removed ethnicity from the internal passport, Germany changed its citizenship law and Turkish public television began broadcasting in minority languages. Using a new typology of 'regimes of ethnicity' and a close study of primary documents and numerous interviews, Sener Akturk argues that the coincidence of three key factors – counterelites, new discourses and hegemonic majorities – explains successful change in state policies toward ethnicity.

Globalism has sharpened the urban/rural divide in 21st century Turkish elections