Ideologies in crisis: political cleavages and electoral politics in Turkey in the 1990s

Abstract

A case study of the Turkish political arena provides a window into processes of democratic consolidation at the margins of Europe. This study focuses on socio-political cleavages and aims to map the space of political competition in Turkey. This discussion is based on an analysis of the discourses that defined the 1995 national election campaign, in which the Islamist Party, the Welfare Party (RP), won a plurality of the votes nation-wide. Turkish media are used to identify four issue continua that defined the arena of competition in the campaign, and five political parties are placed at points along these continua. This study finds that, because Turkish political parties do not link economic and political issues in ‘typical’ right–left packages, a three-dimensional cleavage model that includes economic, political and ‘identity’-based dimensions best represents the coordinates of political competition in Turkey. In addition to creating a cleavage model for Turkish politics, this research explores the possibilities and limitations of applying social-cleavage models beyond the borders of Western Europe and the advanced industrial societies.