https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7995-2244
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ABSTRACT
The global rise of populism has led to efforts to create an ‘alternative truth’ to support populist political aims. This is recently seen in Turkey in the use of post-truth political discourse by the AKP as a primary election campaign strategy. This study investigates how the AKP used post-truth politics to create an alternative truth about the opposition. The main argument of the article is that the AKP used instrumentalization of post-truth politics as a tool to reproduce biases and opinions about the opposition, which contributed to its entire strategy of winning the ballot box in the 2023 Turkish elections.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist.”
2 D’Ancona, Post-truth.
3 Ugur-Cinar, “Elections and Democracy,” and Korkut, Başbuğoğlu, and Şahin, “Turkey’s 2023 Elections”.
4 Çarkoğlu and Yıldırım, “Media Effects,” and Korkut, Başbuğoğlu, and Şahin, “Turkey’s 2023 Elections”.
5 Gill, “Discourse Analysis,” 172–173.
6 Prior, “Content Analysis.”
7 Flood, “Post-truth Named.”
8 Waisbord, “Truth is What Happens,” 1869–1871.
9 Ball, Post-Truth, 108.
10 Farkas and Schou, Post-truth, Fake News, 49.
11 Modreanu, “Post-truth Era.”
12 Waisbord, “The Elective Affinity.”
13 Saurette and Gunster, “Ears Wide Shut,” 199.
14 Galanopoulos and Stavrakakis, “Populism, Anti-Populism.”
15 Ylä-Anttila, “Populist Knowledge,” 399.
16 Lewandowsky, Ecker, and Cook, “Beyond Misinformation.”
17 Fischer, “Knowledge Politics,” 133.
18 Sengul, “Populism, Democracy, Political Style and Post-truth,” 97.
19 Harambam, Gurusauskaite, and de Wildt, “Poly-truth or the Limits of pluralism,” 786.
20 Ward and Voas, “The Emergence of Conspirituality.”
21 Lockie, “Post-truth Politics.”
22 Harsin, “Post-truth Populism,” 42–44.
23 Durnová, “Unpacking Emotional Contexts.”
24 Crilley, “International Relations.”
25 Laybats and Tredinnick, “Post-truth, Information, and Emotion.”
26 Strong, “Alternative Facts.”
27 Marmot, “Post-truth and Science.”
28 Fuller, “Post-truth: Knowledge.”
29 Boler and Davis, “The Affective Politics.”
30 Kelkar, “Post-truth and the Search,” 94.
31 Taş, “The 15 July Abortive,” and Akgül “Fake News.”
32 Montgomery, “Post-truth Politics?,” 623.
33 Karataş and Bek, “Remembering Gezi,” 2214.
34 Marshall and Drieschova, “Post-truth Politics,” 94.
35 Saatçioğlu, “De-Europeanisation.”
36 Euronews, “Erdoğan: Bir Zamanlar.”
37 Zimmermann, “Presidential Elections.”
38 Demiralp and Balta, “Defeating Populists,” and Evrensel, “AKP’li Yavuz’dan İstanbul.”
39 Etl, “Post-truth as a Governmental.”
40 Taş, “The 15 July Abortive.”
41 Çelik, “Screening for Erdoğanism.”
42 TRT Haber, “Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan.”
43 Hacaloğlu, “Milletim Kandil’den Destek.”
44 Hürriyet, “Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan’dan Muhalefete.”
45 Yeni Şafak, “Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: 6’lı Masa.”
46 Diken, “Erdoğan: Bunların Hepsi LGBT’ci.”
47 BirGün, “Soylu Hızını Alamadı.”
48 Diken, “CHP Adına Yine Sahte.”
49 BirGün, “Kayseri’de Kılıçdaroğlu Adına Sahte.”
50 Gazete Duvar, “İstanbul’da Sahte Kılıçdaoğlu Broşürü.”
51 Sözcü, “Erdoğan’ın İstanbul Mitinginde Skandal.”
52 Keyman, “The AK Party.”
53 Erdoğan, “14 Mayıs.”
54 Aksoy, “Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Oğuz Ufuk Haksever
Oğuz Ufuk Haksever is a PhD researcher in international relations and a research assistant at Eastern Mediterranean University. He was awarded the European Union Scholarship Programme for the Turkish Cypriot community to obtain a master’s degree from Leiden University in the field of international relations, in which he specialized in culture and politics. In addition to his high involvement in civil society activism for youth empowerment, he has also worked on EU and UN-funded projects in regard to the Cyprus problem, human and youth rights, and youth political participation.
Ahmet Sözen
Ahmet Sözen is a Professor of International Relations, at Eastern Mediterranean University. He is the founding Director of the Cyprus Policy Center. He was granted one of the fifty 1997 Paul Harris Ambassadorial Peace Scholarships on International Conflict Resolution given in a worldwide competition by the International Rotary Foundation. In addition to an extensive publication record, he has given dozens of invited speeches on conflict resolution (including two TED talks [TEDx Nicosia 2012, TEDx EMUniversity 2014]), the Cyprus conflict, and Turkish foreign policy. He frequently appears on international media, such as Al-Jazeera, Euronews, and BBC, where he comments on world events.