The Turkish party system has undergone significant changes since the 1940s, moving from a two-party system to one encompassing nineteen parties - and resulting in a highly fragmented parliament. The contributors to this volume assess the intertwined effects of party fragmentation and voter volatility in Turkey. Presenting a wealth of data, they illuminate the trajectory of democratic consolidation, as well as underlying issues of representation, participation, and govern-ability.

The study of politics in Turkey : new horizons and perennial pitfalls / Güneş Murat Tezcür -- Democratization theories and Turkey / Ekrem Karakoç -- Ruling ideologies in modern Turkey / Kerem Öktem -- Constitutionalism in Turkey / Aslı Ü. Bâli -- Civil-military relations and the demise of Turkish democracy / Nil S. Satana and Burak Bilgehan Özpek -- Capturing secularism in Turkey : the ease of comparison / Murat Akan -- The political economy of Turkey since the end of World War II / Şevket Pamuk -- Neoliberal politics in Turkey / Sinan Erensü and Yahya M. Madra -- The politics of welfare in Turkey / Erdem Yörük -- The political economy of environmental policymaking in Turkey : a vicious cycle / Fikret Adaman, Bengi Akbulut, and Murat Arsel -- The politics of energy in Turkey : running engines on geopolitical, discursive, and coercive power / Begüm Özkaynak, Ethemcan Turhan, and Cem İskender Aydın -- The contemporary politics of health in Turkey : diverse actors, competing frames, and uneven policies / Volkan Yılmaz -- Populism in Turkey : historical and contemporary patterns / Yüksel Taşkın -- Old and new polarizations and failed democratizations in Turkey / Murat Somer -- Economic voting during the AKP era in Turkey / S. Erdem Aytaç -- Party organizations in Turkey and their consequences for democracy / Melis G. Laebens -- The evolution of conventional political participation in Turkey / Ersin Kalaycıoğlu -- Symbolic politics and contention in the Turkish Republic / Senem Aslan -- Islamist activism in Turkey / Menderes Çınar -- The Kurdish movement in Turkey : understanding everyday perceptions and experiences / Dilan Okcuoglu -- The Transnational Mobilization of the Alevis of Turkey : from invisibility to the struggle for equality / Ceren Lord -- Politics of asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey : limits and prospects of populism / Fatih Resul Kılınç and Şule Toktaş -- A theoretical account of Turkish foreign policy under the AKP / Tarık Oğuzlu -- US-Turkey relations since WWII : from alliance to transactionalism / Serhat Güvenç and Soli Özel -- Turkey and Europe : historical asynchronicities and perceptual asymmetries / Hakan Yılmaz -- Turkey's foreign policy in the Middle East : an identity perspective / Lisel Hintz -- Turkey and Russia : historical patterns and contemporary trends in bilateral relations / Evren Balta and Mitat Çelikpala -- Citizenship and protest behavior in Turkey / Ayhan Kaya -- Gender politics and the struggle for equality in Turkey / Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat -- Human rights organizations in Turkey / Başak Çalı -- Truth, justice, and commemoration initiatives in Turkey / Onur Bakiner -- The politics of media in Turkey : chronicle of a stillborn media system / Sarphan Uzunoğlu -- The AKP's rhetoric of rule in Turkey : political melodramas of conspiracy from "ergenekon" to "mastermind" / Erdağ Göknar -- The transformation of political cinema in Turkey since the 1960s : a change of discourse / Zeynep Çetin-Erus and M. Elif Demoğlu -- Political music in Turkey : the birth and diversification of dissident and conformist music (1920-2000) / Mustafa Avcı.

What determines voting behavior in Turkey? At a time when the center-right, religious-conservative leadership of the Justice and Development Party has dominated government and the political scene in Turkey—so much so that the democratic credentials of the regime have come into question—many have sought to understand what undergirds this party’s success at the polls. While many scholars have argued that elections in Turkey over time can be effectively and simply explained by static social or cultural cleavages, Wuthrich challenges these assertions with a framework that carefully attends to patterns of strategic vote-getting behavior in elections by political parties and their leaders. Using the campaign speeches of the political elite, election data at national and provincial levels, and careful observations of voter mobilization strategies across time, Wuthrich traces four distinct patterns that explain important shifts in electoral behavior. He covers the first free and fair multiparty election in 1950 and follows campaign strategies through 2011, highlighting and explaining the potential development of a new and more problematic paradigm emerging in the post-2007 environment.

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.

President Erdogan's victory in the April 2017 referendum granted him sweeping new powers across Turkey. The constitutional reforms transform the country from a parliamentary democracy into a "Turkish style" presidential republic. Despite being democratically elected, Turkey's ruling AKP party has moved towards increasingly authoritarian measures. During the coup attempt in July 2016, the AKP government declared a state of emergency which Erdogan saw as an opportunity to purge the public sector of pro-Gulenist individuals and criminalise opposition groups including Kurds, Alevites, leftists and liberals. The country experienced political turmoil and rapid transformation as a result. This book identifies the process of democratic reversal in Turkey. In particular, contributors explore the various ways that a democratically elected political party has used elections to implement authoritarian measures. They scrutinise the very concepts of democracy, elections and autocracy to expose their flaws which can be manipulated to advantage. The book includes chapters discussing the roots of authoritarianism in Turkey; the political economy of elections; the relationship between the political Islamic groups and the government; Turkish foreign policy; non-Muslim communities' attitudes towards the AKP; and Kurdish citizens' voting patterns. As well as following Turkey's political trajectory, this book contextualises Turkey in the wider literature on electoral and competitive authoritarianisms and explores the country's future options.

Turkey's growing international profile, candidacy for the EU, and persistent democracy has led to a growing interest in how that country is governed. This book provides portraits of the seven main political parties by Turkish experts who are close observers of these institutions. In addition to providing an analytical survey of Turkish politics today, this volume also provides a fascinating case study on the problems of developing deep-rooted democracy, conflicts between state interests amd interest groups, and the evolution of party systems.

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