Discourse on Democracy in the July 22, 2011 General Election Political Campaign in Turkey: The Case of Tayyip Erdoğan’s Political Rally Speeches

Abstract

This study is an examination of the discourse concerning democracy in Turkey by the Turkish ruling party’s political leader, Tayyip Erdoğan.It is an approach to political campaign analysis by focusing on political campaign techniques and their relationship with democratic culture. This is an attempt to investigate democratic discourse concerning political campaigns because I assume that leaders share their ideas concerning politics and democracy extensively during campaigns. If we define liberal democracy as a process of representation, then political campaigns are very important in the overall democratic structure. However, liberal democracy cannot be viewed as elections only. There are three important normative principles in liberal democracy:limited state, rule of law, and accountability. I analyse these three principles in the political rally speeches of Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2011 general elections in Turkey for the month before the elections by employing discourse analysis. As a result, we can see that the rights of the citizens are seen only as voting and the duty of the state is defined as protecting and shaping them in the speeches. Hence, we can say that the democratic discourse of Tayyip Erdoğan is not sufficiently suitable for the normative principles of liberal democracy. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p13