Killing Competitive Authoritarianism Softly: The 2019 Local Elections in Turkey

Esen, Berk; Gümüşçü, Şebnem

doi:10.1080/13608746.2019.1691318

Cited by 68 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…After the recent economic downturn, the Erdoğan administration have had trouble in addressing the needs of his popular base and even faced criticism from the business. When met with effective coordination among the opposition parties, the economic crisis led the ruling party to suffer an electoral setback in the 2019 local elections (Esen and Gumuscu, 2019). Indeed, in accordance with our account, the party refused to concede in Istanbul since the municipal government generated rents through construction permits, land allocation, municipal-run companies, and local taxes that the AKP elites did not want to lose.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More strikingly, the government replaced 24 elected pro-Kurdish mayors with government appointees. These developments once again affirmed the competitive authoritarian nature of the regime, whereby elections are still real, yet the opposition is facing an uneven playing field and has to surpass a much higher electoral bar than the incumbent party to win (Esen and Gumuscu, 2019).…”

Section: Is Turkey a Case Of Democratic Backsliding Or Breakdown?mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The reality, however, is quite complicated. On the election night, the party refused to concede defeat in Istanbul-the economic bastion of the country and major source of clientelist relations; pressured the electoral commission to cancel the elections and secured a rerun on flimsy legal ground-all signs of a competitive authoritarian regime in action (Esen and Gumuscu, 2019). The AKP conceded only after the opposition won the rerun in June 2019 with a 10-point margin.…”

Section: Is Turkey a Case Of Democratic Backsliding Or Breakdown?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism

Esen

Gümüşçü

2020

Party Politics

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After decades of multiparty politics, Turkey is no longer a democracy. A theory-upending case, the country has descended into a competitive authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party ( Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP), despite rising income and education levels and strong links with the West. What accounts for democratic breakdown in such an unlikely case? Instead of ideological and institutional factors, we offer a political economy account. We contend that the coalitional ties that the AKP forged with businesses and the urban poor through the distribution of public resources has altered the cost of toleration for the party leadership and their dependent clients, while reducing the cost of suppression for incumbents. This new political calculus led to increasing authoritarianism of the AKP government through securitization of dissent, mounting repression, and systematic violation of civil liberties.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Is Turkey a Case Of Democratic Backsliding Or Breakdown?mentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Is Turkey a Case Of Democratic Backsliding Or Breakdown?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism

Esen

Gümüşçü

2020

Party Politics

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“…Although the AKP would finish first with a share of 44.33 per cent of the vote, local elections on 31 March 2019, ended its long-running grip on major metropolitan municipalities including Istanbul and Ankara. Esen and Gumuscu (2019) argue that "this defeat came after 25 years of Islamist control and handed the most serious electoral defeat to the ruling party since its rise to power in 2002" (p.1). The CHP, with the support of other opposition parties, gained control of 11 of 30 metropolitan municipalities.…”

Section: What Explains the Dynamics Of Decentralisation Reform In Turmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political dynamics of local government reform in a development context: The case of Turkey

Savaşkan

2020

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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This article examines the political dynamics of local government reform in Turkey during 2000s and 2010s, showing how the reform was implemented in a way that reproduced central state power. Contributing to debates on the relationship between state rescaling and decentralisation, it argues that the dynamics of electoral politics are key to determining the nature of institutional changes affecting central-local relations. In the Turkish context, decentralisation did not align with the interests of the ruling Justice and Development Party, given that opposition parties could potentially win local elections and control local municipal councils. By questioning the significance of the recent trend of decentralisation and the devolution of authority to lower levels of government in Turkey, this article contributes to the literature on the limits of decentralisation, especially in non-western contexts.

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“…For the time being, by engaging in agency-driven de-institutionalization, we argue that, the AKP has experienced an organizational decay. The symptoms have become even more apparent following the opposition parties’ recent local election victories, when the AKP lost nearly all the major metropolitan municipalities (see Esen and Gumuscu, 2019). Two key figures of the party Ali Babacan and Ahmet Davutoglu have established new political parties targeting the AKP’s core electorate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Party (de)institutionalization in times of political uncertainty: The case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey

Yardımcı-Geyikçi

Yavuzyılmaz

2020

Party Politics

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Recently many polities around the world as different as Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, Thailand suffer from autocratization. This has led to a growing scholarly interest in the process of autocratization. Yet, despite this emerging generation of studies on democratic setbacks, we still do not know much about the changing nature of party politics in the process of autocratization. We argue, in this article, that during autocratization, the incumbent party follows the path of internal and external party deinstitutionalization in response to the changing nature and intensity of political uncertainties. Using the case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, we address three questions: (1) How can the concept of party de-institutionalization be revised and used to understand party transformation during autocratization? (2) What explains party deinstitutionalization in transitional contexts? (3) What is the relationship between party de-institutionalization and autocratization? In doing so, this article increases our understanding of party transformation in transitional contexts and more specifically incumbent party change in the process of autocratization by providing a causal theory of party deinstitutionalization.

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Killing Competitive Authoritarianism Softly: The 2019 Local Elections in Turkey

Cited by 68 publications

References 27 publications

Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism

Why did Turkish democracy collapse? A political economy account of AKP’s authoritarianism

Political dynamics of local government reform in a development context: The case of Turkey

Party (de)institutionalization in times of political uncertainty: The case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey

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