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Understanding populist politics in Turkey: a hegemonic depth approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2019

Faruk Yalvaç Open the ORCID record for Faruk Yalvaç [Opens in a new window]  and
Jonathan Joseph
Faruk Yalvaç*
Affiliation:
Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University
Jonathan Joseph
Affiliation:
School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies, University of Bristol
*
*Corresponding author. Email: fyalvac@metu.edu.tr
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Abstract

The aim of this article is to understand populism as a hegemonic project involving a struggle for power between different social forces. We take a critical realist approach in defining populism. This implies several things. We develop a new approach to understanding populist politics by taking neither a purely discursive (Laclau), nor a solely structural (Poulantzas), but a critical realist approach and analysing the three-way relationship between structural conditions, agency, and institutional framework. Second, it implies that populist politics is composed of complex and often contradictory dynamics and emergent features involving mainly domestic but also international processes. We develop this through a combination of three concepts – passive revolution, hegemonic depth, and partial hegemony. These indicate how a hegemonic project is situated in deeper social relations and how hegemonic leadership responds to this. We take the policies of AKP government in Turkey as a case in populist hegemonic project. We demonstrate that AKP has followed different hegemonic projects during its rule changing from an initial majoritarian populist politics to one of neoliberal authoritarian populism as it has consolidated its hegemonic depth. These different populist projects involve alternative visions of Turkey but are nevertheless all compatible with a global neoliberal agenda.

Keywords

PopulismTurkeyCritical RealismHegemonic DepthHegemonic Project
Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 45 , Special Issue 5: Special Issue on Populism , December 2019 , pp. 786 - 804
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2019 

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References

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79 Saracoğlu and Demirkol, ‘Nationalism and foreign policy discourse’, p. 301.

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92 As mentioned in the introduction.

93 Panizza, ‘Populism’, p. 18.

94 Hall, ‘Authoritarian populism’, p. 36.

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