Organization of the AKP and Turkey’s Path to Dictatorship

• In Event: Dominant Parties and Democracy: the Role of Party Organization

Abstract

Strong and institutionalized parties and party systems have been argued to contribute to democratic consolidation and stability (Mainwaring and Scully 1995, Rosenbluth and Shapiro 2018). Yet, the literature on democratic breakdowns shows that parties can both make and break democracy (Linz and Stepan 1978). This paper argues that a “strong” party does not always contribute to democratic stability, and may even help undermine democracy if it possesses certain organizational features. Focusing on contemporary Turkey, I demonstrate how Erdogan used his party AKP to expand and consolidate his personal power and build a dictatorship in Turkey.

I argue that organizational technologies developed in the AKP and its antecedent parties produced a highly centralized and embedded political party, which has direct personal contact with a large number of voters. The combination of an extensive organization with neighborhood level presence and a centralized party bureaucracy effectively merged programmatic and clientelistic elements. Centralized intra-party bureaucratic processes that would be more usual in programmatic parties, helped Erdogan maintain unity and discipline in his party. At the same time, patronage distributed through highly embedded party agents helped the party secure voter loyalty and turnout. With this combination, made possible in part thanks to internal organizational technologies, the party could both attract large sectors of society into its orbit with material incentives, and forge strong party discipline.

To sustain the argument, the paper first discusses the origins of AKP and it’s organizational practices starting with its highly ideological Islamist antecedent parties, through the early years of the AKP until Erdogan secured full control over the party and AKP became Turkey’s dominant party. The second part of the paper discusses the evolution of the AKP during the long process of democratic backsliding. On the one hand, presenting original data on the backgrounds of AKP legislators and legislative leaders, I argue that Erdogan was able to shuffle around his coalition, increasing the reach of his patronage, without electoral costs. I claim that this was possible in part thanks to centralized control over the selection of all party officers and candidates. On the other hand, I argue that even as the regime became less democratic and party elites lost importance, Erdogan continued to put great emphasis on securing direct contact with voters via the neighborhood party, and increasingly via elected neighborhood representatives. This strategy paid off: In the 2015 general elections, during the 2016 coup attempt and in the 2018 general elections local party structures contributed to AKP’s mobilization efforts, and to Erdogan’s further consolidation as dictator of the New Turkey.

Author

• Melis Gulboy Laebens, Yale University