Left-wing populism in Turkey

Abstract

In the post-political period, the Kurdish-led Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has offered a radical democratic political project by adopting a left-leaning populism to challenge the political establishment (elites) through the construction of a new concept of ‘the People’ (underdog) in a new political grammar. This article outlines the feasibility of applying Laclau’s populist discursive in analyzing the notion of radical democracy, which is conceptualized in terms of Mouffe’s agonistic approach, as a ‘real’ alternative in the organic crisis of the ‘new Turkey’. The inclusive populism of the HDP mobilizes the collective passion in politics, with its common effects, in order to create a counter-hegemonic bloc. This left-wing populist ontology aims to reform the existing democratic institutions in terms of an egalitarian and libertarian rhetoric to challenge the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) right-wing conservative populism that has recently transformed into authoritarianism, majoritarianism, and illiberalism in the post-democracy era.