Why No Mass, Left Party in Turkey? Blocked Articulation: Party Rules and Symbolic Resources (1989-1995)

• In Event: 4322 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 04. The Political Sociology of Parties

Abstract

Extending the theme of recent inquiries (Eidlin 2016; Ackerman forthcoming), the present paper asks why no mass party of workers, farmers, and the poor in Turkey, positing that this puzzle holds considerable relevance to the country’s current political predicament as an important case in the wider global rise of illiberal politics. While earlier accounts concentrate on the pre-1980 period and cite strategic shortcomings of the Republican People’s Party, this paper examines the politics of the re-democratization period after the 1980 coup. I demonstrate that the successful creation of a mass-based left party in this new constitutional setting was foiled in spite of earnest interest on the part of Turkish and Kurdish politicians as well as popular grievances awakened by the destabilizing market transition. I propose two explanatory factors. First, junta-imposed party rules aims restricted parties’ abilities to propose policy to resolve the Kurdish conflict, generating trade-offs for left party leaders between broadening their voter bloc and retaining access to state power. In this setting, Kurdish and Turkish social democrats' interests increasingly diverged. By breaking apart the initial attempt at a mass party, party rules initiated a path-dependent sequence by eliminating this possibility from the political field, at which point the symbolic resources associated with the historic center-left in Turkey—national homogeneity and solidarism and the ideal of an un-divided society—made it difficult for subsequent politicians to articulate a “left” position that was pluralist and market-protective. I thus demonstrate how the combination of party rules and party articulation precluded formation of a mass party in Turkey.

Author

• Phyllis Handan Jeffrey, University of California-Davis