A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT PARTIES IN INDIA AND TURKEY: THE CASES OF THE INC, CHP AND THE BJP, AKP

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2024-7-15
Acun, Kutlu
Recently, the party politics agenda has been occupied by the debates of right-wing extremism and the resurgence of the far-right parties. And the landscape of political parties is witnessing a transformation, one that is characterized not by right-wing extremism but by the rise of anti-establishment sentiments. The prevailing anti- establishment sentiments challenge the conventional party structures and thus catalyze the emergence and rise of anti-establishment parties. In this master‘s thesis, I present a unique analytical plane, namely the plane of the establishment — anti- establishment, on which the categorization of political parties is possible based on the parties‘ position within the establishment and anti-establishment dynamics. Following the introduction of the conceptual framework, I compare and contrast earnest examples from India and Turkey to illustrate establishment — anti- establishment relations. In this comparative framework, I provide historical and empirical accounts of the Republican People‘s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) from Turkey, as well as the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Indian People‘s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) from India. Based on the comparative analysis of datasets such as Global Party Survey (GPS), World Value Survey (WVS) and V-Party of Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), I argue that while the AKP and the BJP, once anti-establishment parties, have transformed into establishment-making establishment parties, the CHP and the INC, once establishment-making establishment parties, have degraded into establishment anti-incumbency.
Citation Formats
K. Acun, “A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT PARTIES IN INDIA AND TURKEY: THE CASES OF THE INC, CHP AND THE BJP, AKP,” M.A. - Master of Arts, Middle East Technical University, 2024.