To Mobilize or Not: Opposition Parties under Competitive Authoritarianism

• In Event: Party Competition and Democracy

Abstract

Vital and often complementary roles are attributed to political parties and social movements for
democratic representation. However, the interaction of these two important actors is still
understudied. While there are attempts to understand the relationship between the two based on the framework of contentious politics approach (McAdam and Tarrow 2010) and the
institutionalization of the movements (Kitschelt 2006), there is still a lack of studies concerning
the adoption of forms of collective action from the contentious into the institutionalized realm.

The aim of this study is thus to understand the relationship between political parties and social
movements, more specifically the use of social movement tactics by the parties. Why do parties
adopt social movement tactics? When do they so? What kind of organizational resources they rely on to engage in street protests? Answering these questions with regards to the parties’ decisions to protest would help us to advance our understanding of how institutionalized and noninstitutionalized politics interact, and to bridge the gap between social movement studies and research on political parties, elections and party competition.

The paper is going to try to answer these questions departing from the case of Turkey. While
Turkey has not been a ‘movement society’ (Meyer and Tarrow 2008), it is possible to observe a
surge after the Gezi Park protests in 2013. The grassroots mobilization started against the abolishment of a park in Istanbul, it soon converted into mass anti-government protests also with the, unwelcomed, participation of some of the opposition parties. It is going to be argued in the paper that the use of streets as a venue has changed especially after the failed coup attempt in July 2016, after which the president Erdogan called people to the streets to defend the nation against the plotters. Following couple of weeks has witnessed the ‘Watch for Democracy’ gatherings called upon by the governing party. Another significant interaction was the case of three-week long ‘March for Justice’ in Turkey organized in 2017 by the Republican People’s Party. Started by the leader of the opposition, the March for Justice, a march from Ankara to Istanbul, lasted about three weeks with the participation of thousands and ended with a rally in Istanbul, with the participation of various groups.

Employing an archival newspaper/news agency research, and semi-structured in-depth interviews with the organizers and the participants of the march, the paper argues four variables contributed to differentiated reaction of the opposition under a competitive authoritarian regime, namely, the historical legacy and ideology, cost/leverage, opportunity and visibility.

Author

• Selin Bengi Gumrukcu, Rutgers University, New Brunswick