Understanding the Predominant Party: Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi and Political Linkage Strategies

• In Event: 261 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. Parties, Movements, Regimes

Abstract

By focusing on the case of Turkey’s Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, hereafter AKP), this paper traces the factors, which have shaped the ascent of a new political party of reformist Islamists’ to a player of predominant status in Turkey’s multiparty system. The overview in the paper is twofold: The first section discusses some of the prominent factors, which the scholars have estimated to be determining electoral success. The second section builds upon the premise that understanding political predominance requires going beyond elections. In this section, the author discusses the political economy of political linkage strategies employed during the AKP rule as a critical component that shapes the sustainability of predominance. Elite incorporation through ideological flexibility and targeted distributive politics are among these strategies. Keywords: political sociology, predominant party, distributive politics, Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi

Author

• Deniz Ilhan, Stony Brook University