The rural roots of the rise of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey

Abstract

This paper puts forward four main arguments regarding the persistence of significant rural support of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey since late 2002. Firstly, since the previous coalition government implemented the harshest neoliberal measures in the agricultural sector, small farmers do not directly associate neoliberal assault with the AKP administration. Secondly, villagers have utilized both the ballot box and direct action in order to bargain with the AKP. Thirdly, although the AKP government did not fundamentally depart from neoliberalism, the return of agricultural subsidies, significant expansion of social assistance, and rapid infrastructure construction have secured a large rural following for the party. Finally, the AKP government has effectively used coercive methods to prevent the emergence of an emancipatory political alternative.

Agrarian social movements: The absurdly difficult but not impossible agenda of defeating right‐wing populism and exploring a socialist future

“…It is important not to forget that, historically, rural social classes and groups have a checkered record in terms of supporting right wing, even fascist political projects. The contemporary rural support for Trump in the United States (Ulrich-Schad & Duncan, 2018), Putin in Russia (Mamonova, 2016(Mamonova, , 2018(Mamonova, , forthcoming 2019, Le Pen in France, Erdogan in Turkey (Adaman, Arsel & Akbulut, forthcoming 2019;Gurel et al, forthcoming 2019), Modi in India, the Red Shirt movement in Thailand supporting Thaksin (Nishizaki, 2014), and the Greenshirts of 1920s and 1930s French led by Henry Dorgeres (Paxton, 1997) all remind us of past and present rural support to right-wing political ideas and initiatives. Bello (2018) offers a critical reflection on the relationship between the rise of fascism, the peasantry, and the middle class in Chile, Indonesia, Italy, the Philippines, and Thailand, seen from the contemporary context.…”

Populism, Neoliberalism and Agrarian Movements in Europe. Understanding Rural Support for Right‐Wing Politics and Looking for Progressive Solutions

“…For instance, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was very critical of the previous government's neoliberal policy in the countryside. Yet although his agricultural policy has brought back some modest support to the rural poor, its core remains neoliberal and supports large-scale producers (Gürel et al 2019). Likewise, the new right-wing Italian government continues the agricultural policy of its predecessor and promotes 'Made in Italy' food -the idea, which initially draws on local biodiversity, quality, ties with the territory, peasantness.…”

“…Scholars tend to be divided between those that place primacy on cultural factors as drivers of the rise right‐wing populism (Mols and Jetten ; Inglehart and Norris ) and those that privilege economic factors (Kriesi and Pappas ; Gürel et al ). According to the former, the growing popularity of right‐wing populism should be understood as a reaction against the spread of progressive values such as multiculturalism, laicism, and cosmopolitanism, exacerbated by the fears of losing national identity due to the migrant crisis.…”

Authoritarianism, populism, nationalism and resistance in the agrarian South

“…As Bello (2019) and Hart (2019) demonstrate, the resurgence of nationalism and authoritarianism has been brewing in the Global South as a response to the limitations of Keynesian developmentalism and the ravages of neoliberalism many years before. And as many others have argued, this populist counter-movement to neoliberal globalisation has deep roots in rural areas and among the "floating populations" of landless peasants and precarious workers all around the world: from the rise of Recep Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party in Turkey (Gürel, Küçük, and Taş 2019), Narendra Modi's Hidu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in India (Chacko 2020), and Vladimir Putin's authoritarian nationalism in Russia Mamonova 2019 This analysis of the new political moment in terms of resurgent nationalism, authoritarianism, and various forms of populism has become a pillar of critical agrarian and development studies. Of particular importance has been the re-emergence of the term "authoritarian populism".…”