Ballots with Bullets: Elections, Violence, and the Rise of the Extreme Right in Turkey

Abstract

Dominant literature on social movements and extreme right politics assumes that participation in electoral politics is incompatible with utilization of political violence. This elections-violence dualism has recently been challenged by the rise of far right political movements and parties that utilize political violence and electoral politics in various countries, such as the BJP in India, the Golden Dawn in Greece and the MHP in Turkey. This paper examines the negative case of the extreme right in Turkey, led by the MHP (Nationalist Action Party) to explain how far right movements can utilize political violence and avoid both marginalization and state repression. The paper utilizes mixed methods using original quantitative data on extreme right violence in Turkey compiled from historical newspaper archives and in-depth interviews conducted by the author. Through a combination of historical and quantitative analysis, the paper shows that political violence used by ülkücü movement has not declined but further increased with extreme right votes. Qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews explains how extreme right was able to escape marginalization and state repression due to the political context marked by Kurdish conflict as well as movement's strategic utilization and framing of political violence in response to this political context.