Overview
Explores the question of electoral success in the aftermath of regime changes
Adopts a process-tracing approach that merges three different theories
States that repressive acts of the state have been subject to widespread public criticism
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book analyzes the transformation of ethnic and religious political parties in Turkey with special focus on their role in the country’s democratization and regime changes. Turkey went through a process of autocratization under the rule of the AKP government over the last two decades. Scholars question the structural, agent-centered and cultural factors that led the country on this path, and provide the lessons learnt from this case for other cases of democratic decline or breakdown. This book contributes to this debate. It treats the three national elections (2002, 2007, 2015-June) as opportunities for democratization, in which the Islamist-successor AKP (in 2002, 2007) and the Kurdish-successor HDP (in 2015-June) managed to overcome identity politics and received the organized support from social groups outside of their traditional constituency. This book argues that in a semi-democratic context where repressive acts of the state (e.g. banning of parties, arresting politicians) have been subject to widespread public criticism, confronting the state becomes a salient issue. When these parties manage to frame this issue as one of democracy, they take ownership of it, and this then becomes an opportunity for democratizing the regime. This opportunity, yet, can be missed if the party follows an office-seeking strategy rather than a policy-seeking one.
Reviews
“Turkey’s drift towards an increasingly authoritarian regime has received considerable scholarly attention in recent years. Pelin Ayan Musil’s latest book makes an important contribution to this growing literature. It is a thoughtful and detailed account of the role played by the Kurdish and Islamist parties in Turkey’s democratic backsliding during more than two decades of rule by the Islamist AKP. Through an insightful analysis based on solid research that includes interviews with the party activists, the book shows how the Kurdish and Islamist parties achieved significant electoral success by advocating greater democratization in Turkey but ended up contributing to the rise of an authoritarian regime under Erdoğan’s personalist rule.” (Sabri Sayarı, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Sabancı University, Istanbul)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Pelin Ayan Musil is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Relations, Prague in the Czech Republic.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Transformation of Kurdish and Islamist Parties in Turkey
Book Subtitle: Consequences for Regime Change
Authors: Pelin Ayan Musil
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06293-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-06292-6Published: 17 July 2022
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-06295-7Published: 18 July 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-06293-3Published: 16 July 2022
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXI, 193
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 6 illustrations in colour
Topics: Middle Eastern Politics, Politics and Religion, Comparative Politics