Understanding populist politics in Turkey: a hegemonic depth approach

Faruk Yalvaç,Jonathan Joseph

doi:10.1017/s0260210519000238

Faruk Yalvaç, Jonathan Joseph

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0260210519000238

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Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this article is to understand populism as a hegemonic project involving a struggle for power between different social forces. We take a critical realist approach in defining populism. This implies several things. We develop a new approach to understanding populist politics by taking neither a purely discursive (Laclau), nor a solely structural (Poulantzas), but a critical realist approach and analysing the three-way relationship between structural conditions, agency, and institutional framework. Second, it implies that populist politics is composed of complex and often contradictory dynamics and emergent features involving mainly domestic but also international processes. We develop this through a combination of three concepts – passive revolution, hegemonic depth, and partial hegemony. These indicate how a hegemonic project is situated in deeper social relations and how hegemonic leadership responds to this. We take the policies of AKP government in Turkey as a case in populist hegemonic project. We demonstrate that AKP has followed different hegemonic projects during its rule changing from an initial majoritarian populist politics to one of neoliberal authoritarian populism as it has consolidated its hegemonic depth. These different populist projects involve alternative visions of Turkey but are nevertheless all compatible with a global neoliberal agenda.

Highlights

This article discusses the development of populism in Turkey during the rule of the Justice and Development Party under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
We develop a new approach to understanding populist politics by taking neither a purely discursive (Laclau), nor a solely structural (Poulantzas), but a critical realist approach and analysing the three-way relationship between structural conditions, agency, and institutional framework
We develop this through a combination of three concepts – passive revolution, hegemonic depth, and partial hegemony

Summary

Introduction

This article discusses the development of populism in Turkey during the rule of the Justice and Development Party (hereafter AKP) under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The article employs a conceptual framework that emphasises their continuity insofar as the second phase is an outgrowth of the first. In doing this we combine a Gramscian analysis of hegemony with Poulantzian arguments about populism and the power bloc and critical realist arguments about social stratification, structural depth, and the structureagency relationship. We centre our argument on the three concepts of passive revolution, hegemonic depth, and partial hegemony since these emphasise both the specificity of the AKP’s populism, and its location in relation to underlying social structures and changing global context

Faruk Yalvaç and Jonathan Joseph

Findings

Conclusion