AKP's neoliberal populism and contradictions of new social policies in Turkey

Date

2020-05-01

Author

Ozdemir, Yonca

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

436
views

0
downloads

The AKP came to power in Turkey in 2002 after a devastating economic crisis and has since become a hegemonic party. Despite its neoliberal policies, its votes mostly come from the poorer echelons of the society. This article analyses the AKP as a prime example of 'neoliberal populism' and argues that the AKP's social policies are the material sources of its neoliberal populism. There are, however, important contradictions in AKP's social policies. First, they have mostly bene?ted informal sector workers, but have decreased the bene?ts of formal employees. Second, some of the social policies are programmatic and universal, but others are particularistic and clientelistic. Third, although social programmes and spending increased, the labour policies of AKP have decreased the power and conditions of labour. These social policy contradictions help AKP target the poor unorganized sections of the society, gain and maintain popularity among them and weaken opposition to its neoliberalism and authoritarianism.

Subject Keywords

Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/64329

Journal

CONTEMPORARY POLITICS

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/13569775.2020.1720891

Collections

Economics and Administrative Sciences, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Turkey and Turkic Nations: A Post-Cold War Analysis of Relations Çınar, Süleyman Kürşat (Informa UK Limited, 2013-06-01) Turkish foreign policy has experienced massive alterations after the end of Cold War. This has been most evident in Turkey's relations with Turkic nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus, all of which gained independence from the USSR. This article aims to provide a thorough analysis on this issue. First, the article explores the ethnicity concept and applies it to the relations between Turkey and Turkic nations. Then, it examines Turkey's relations with other regional and international powers, namely Russ...
The 2011 Parliamentary Elections in Turkey and Challenges Ahead for Democratic Reform Under a Dominant Party System Aslan Akman, Canan (Informa UK Limited, 2012-01-01) The sweeping electoral victory of the centre-right Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey's parliamentary elections of 2011 constitutes a milestone in the governing party's consolidation of political dominance. This article discusses the significance of the recent elections for the challenge of reconciling majoritarian dynamics in the Turkish political system with the need to reach an enduring consensus among parliamentary parties. It is argued that, in the aftermath of the elections, this challenge ...
Rethinking the Tunisian miracle: a party politics view Yardimci-Geyikci, Sebnem; Tür Küçükkaya, Özlem (Informa UK Limited, 2018-01-01) Five years on from the Tunisian revolution, Tunisia stands as the sole success story of the Arab Spring. The country since then has managed to adopt a pluralist and democratic constitution, and held three free and fair elections. Accordingly, in the eyes of several observers, Tunisia is now in the process of consolidating its new democracy. However, the reality on the ground seems much gloomier, as most recent opinion surveys suggest that there is a significant degree of dissatisfaction, not only with polit...
Determinants of political behavior in Istanbul, Turkey Ozcan, YZ (SAGE Publications, 2000-10-01) This paper investigates the factors that determined the party preferences in the 1987 and 1991 general elections and the 1989 local election in Istanbul, Turkey's largest metropolitan city. It argues that parry preference is essentially an aspect of individual political behavior, which should be explained by the characteristics of individuals who are, in turn, affected by various macro factors. Theories developed for industrialized western countries are of limited use in developing countries and in need of ...
Deprivation, Identification, and Extreme Pro-Group Behaviors: The Political Environment in Turkey ÖZDEMİR, FATİH; Özkan, Türker (American Psychological Association (APA), 2020-05-01) The purpose of this research, conducted after the 2015 parliamentary election in Turkey, was to investigate the relations of individuals with their local in-group and an extended in-group. In-group favoritism was interpreted using relative deprivation and social identity theories. Participants were supporters of the Republican People's Party, the Peoples' Democratic Party, and the Nationalist Movement Party. After demographic variables were controlled, group-based relative deprivation and group identificati...

Citation Formats

Y. Ozdemir, “AKP’s neoliberal populism and contradictions of new social policies in Turkey,” CONTEMPORARY POLITICS, pp. 245–267, 2020, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/64329.