Modernity in transformation: Turkey under the AKP governance

Abstract

This chapter attempts to explain why and how the Justice and Development Party (the AKP) has won two national elections and became the governing party with a majority rule in Turkey. The electoral success of the AKP and its impacts on Turkish society goes much beyond the domain of party politics, insofar as the very identity and political success of the party has to do with (a) the much deeper process of transformation that Turkey has been undergoing recently in terms of its economy, its culture and its international relations, and whose historical context is not only national but, global, regional and local; and (b) the inability of the social democratic center-left party (the CHP), the nationalist party (the MHP), the Kurdish party (the BDP), and the other center-right parties (the ANAP and the DP) to cope with this transformation. In this chapter, I will situate the AKP in a much more sociological, economic and political context, and attempt to analyze its conservative-liberal identity with reference to Turkey's recent global, European and democratic transformation. Such an analysis will also demonstrate the limits of the AK Party experience and provide a number of policy-based suggestions to make Turkey a democratic, just and stable country with proactive and constructive foreign policy.