The Justice and Development Party in Turkey

Turkish politics were remarkably reshaped in the early 2000s following the decline of the Islamist National View and the electoral breakthrough of the new Justice and Development Party (JDP) headed by Erdoğan. Beside its Islamist credentials, Erdoğans JDP consistently and convincingly presented itself as the populist defender of the downtrodden sectors of Turkish society. However, with Erdoğans rise as the popularly elected president in 2014, Turkeys already fragile democratic system was driven in a more authoritarian direction. Shifting the focus away from structural factors, this book analyzes the political appeal and organisation of the JDP that granted them such unprecedented electoral resilience. With critical but accessible theoretical discussions, Toygar Sinan Baykan locates the JDP within the wider literature of populism, Islamist party politics, party organisations and authoritarianism. Over fifty in-depth interviews also help to relate the intimate story of Turkeys socio-cultural divides and the JDPs intraparty organisational dynamics, thereby offering a fresh account of Turkish politics.