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Abstract
Participation is key to the discussions of democracy and justice. For all citizens, no matter their differences, having the ability to participate is a difficult but required condition for a just and democratic political community. Based on the recent research on citizenship in Turkey, this article aims to explore, first, whether young citizens’ political participation shows a different pattern when compared to the rest of the population and, second, whether being young still determines the outcome when controlled for demographical factors and economic status. We then question whether belonging to different collective identities plays a different role in the way young citizens participate, and how. Last, mostly focusing on young citizens’ perceptions of the Gezi Park protests, the paper will discuss the role of politicized collective identities in the formation of conventional and unconventional political participation.
Notes
1. Democratic experience in Turkey has been criticized for being ‘illiberal’; ‘partly free’ and ‘tutelary’. Thus in recent years there has been a downward trend towards ‘competitive authoritarianism’. See Öniş (Citation2014); Özbudun (Citation2015); Esen and Gumuscu (Citation2016); see also Taşkın (Citation2013) for a discussion on conservative democracy and problems of democratization in Turkey.
2. Reasons for this inertia/unwillingness of citizens to participate are innumerable but some of them are widely discussed and commonly known (Çarkoğlu and Kalaycioglu Citation2006, 88).
3. It is also possible to compare the political experience of Turkish youth with the Arab Spring in which youth played a critical role (see Hoffman and Jamal Citation2012; Öniş Citation2012; De Jong and Moaddel Citation2014; Böcü Citation2015); we believe that the democratic experience of Turkey since 1946 creates significant differences between Turkey and the Arab Spring countries.
4. Comparative studies show that different age groups have different patterns of political participation and the younger generations are more active in unconventional/elite challenging forms of political participation (Inglehart Citation1997; Flanagan Citation2003; Dalton Citation2008; Goerres Citation2009; Melo and Stockemer Citation2014). According to Norris (Citation2003), any age-related differences can be attributed to three distinct processes: A generational effect, a life-cycle effect and a periodical effect. Each of these may have different implications for understanding political participation which requires further research.
5. Thus 15 July 2016, a month later than our submission of this paper, we witnessed another break in the history of Turkish politics: a military junta tried to overthrow the government. President Erdoğan called people to go out to the streets and to stand against the military. Starting that Friday night, people went out to the streets and squares every night for almost a month. This unexpected collective behaviour, which is an example of unconventional participation, needs to be further studied.
6. For a review of the Gezi Protests from the political participation perspective, Göle (Citation2013), Yoruk (Citation2014) and Erdoğan (Citation2015b)
7. Voter turnout ratios are always high in Turkey, as a result of compulsory voting introduced after the 1980 coup d’etat, changing between 80 and 92% in the general elections and 75 and 89% in the local elections. In the last local elections of 2014, voter turnout became 89.4%. Taşkın (Citation2015) explains this situation as an outcome of increased tension in the political scene: the corruption allegations of December 17–25, 2013; the Gezi Protests increased political interest of previously inactive segments of society and the AK Party responded to it by mobilizing its constituency to guarantee a certain number of seats as a symbol of public confidence (472).
8. The lack of civic participation is another problem in Turkish society. The last wave of the World Values Survey shows that only 12% of the citizens of Turkey are members of a civil society organization. This score puts Turkey in 55th place among 65 countries covered by the survey.
9. According to the authors, different forms of political participation have different characteristics. Conventional forms of political participation such as voting, membership to political parties or participating in campaign activities were elite-driven or passive. The authors observed that while those kinds of political activity were declining among the European nations, other forms of political activity were becoming popular. Demonstrations, boycotts and occupation of buildings were among these new forms of political activities, and they were structurally different: they were elite-challenging and coordinated by ad hoc groups rather than strict, top-down organized hierarchical organizations.
10. In our multivariate analyses, we used the Generalized Linear Models, a method developed to present relationships between a set of independent variables and a dependent variable, and which allows the use of different models, such as linear, logit, probit and similar types of regressions. Generalized Linear Models were introduced by Nelder and Wedderburn (Citation1972) for calculating a wide range of statistical models from multiple linear regression to Poisson regression. The model is defined by g(ui) = β1xi1 + + βkxik; i = 1, , n, where Bs are unknown coefficients.
11. We included these items in the factor analysis: Ownership of dishwasher machine (72.7%), desktop or laptop computer (62.5%), credit card (45.5%), automobile (34.5%), smartphone (48%), tablet computer (24.2%), flatscreen television (52.3%) and broadband Internet connection at home (53.7%).
12. Inglehart’s thesis about the different dimensions of political participation relays on the Hierarchy of Needs approach of Maslow (Citation1943), and it includes five motivational needs, often presented as a pyramid of levels of needs. This pyramid can be divided into basic and psychological needs which ensure survival (e.g., physiological, safety, love and esteem) and growth needs (self-actualization). According to Inglehart, those having concerns of economic or physical insecurity prioritize order and stability and possess materialist values. Those having post materialist values are expected to have been exposed to greater security and, as a result, are oriented towards satisfying other needs. Materialists prefer to participate to politics via conventional tools; whereas post-materialist values push people to use unconventional tools (Inglehart Citation1971).
13. ‘Atatürkçüler’ are those who support Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (the founder of the Turkish Republic), symbolizing secularism and modernity. ‘LGBT’ means lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual. ‘Geziciler’ stands for those participating in the Gezi Park protests.
14. Both methods work in the same direction to reduce the number of dimensions. Factor analysis is usable for continuous variables, whereas multiple correspondence analysis allows using ordinal or nominal variables.