“Chain” of populism from the democrat party to the justice and development party in Turkey

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Thesis Type: Doctorate

Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Turkey

Approval Date: 2016

Thesis Language: English

Student: Esin Kıvrak Köroğlu

Supervisor: AYŞE AYATA

Abstract:

This dissertation analyses the relationship between populism and democracy in Turkey from the perspective of Laclau’s theory on populism, focusing on the Democrat Party and the Justice and Development Party as illustrative cases. As the framework that Laclau developed to the end of studying the phenomenon of populism takes discourse analysis as its methodology, this dissertation addresses the discourse of democracy adopted by the Democrat Party and the Justice and Development Party. The cases of these two political parties fits Laclau’s theoretical framework perfectly, which provides us with the opportunity to reach key findings on the relationship between populism and democracy in Turkey. Populism is believed to contribute to the further development of democracy at times, and is deemed to be a pathological constituent of democratic systems at others.This dissertation demonstrates that the cases of the Democrat Party and the Justice and Development Party give revealing clues regarding the nature of the relationship between populism and democracy as experienced in Turkey. In this context, while carrying out a discussion on this relationship, this dissertation analyzes the circumstances in which populism contributed to and those in which it impaired democracy in Turkey.