Political Parties Adopting Movement Tactics: The Case of CHP and the ‘March for Justice’

• In Event: 2229 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable #16

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? The paper is going to try to answer these questions departing from the case of the 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. In doing so, the paper employs an archival newspaper research and semi-structured in-depth interviews with the organizers and the participants of the march.

Author

• Selin Bengi Gumrukcu, Rutgers University