The Turkish Party System in Transition

Abstract

CONTINUITY RATHER THAN CHANGE WAS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE Turkish party system during its formative years in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Now, however, party competition in Turkey appears to be approaching a new phase of development. While some political analysts have described the emerging trends in the 1970s with reference to a ‘critical realignment’ in mass electoral behaviour, others have characterized the party system as going through a period of ‘flux and transition’. Indeed, the recent course of electoral politics in Turkey displays some significant changes. First, with the termination of the Justice Party's UP) dominant position in party competition, there has been a transition from a predominant party system to one of moderate pluralism in which the likelihood of coalition government has significantly increased. Secondly, the trend toward greater fragmentation in the party system which partially accounted for the JP's loss of dominance in 1973, appears to have been reversed in the 1977 parliamentary election as the two major parties made substantial gains at the expense of the minor parties. Thirdly, these changes have been accompanied by the increase of ideological polarization in the party system and the intensification of ideological cleavages among the party elites.