The rural roots of the rise of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This paper puts forward four main arguments regarding the persistence of significant rural support of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey since late 2002. Firstly, since the previous coalition government implemented the harshest neoliberal measures in the agricultural sector, small farmers do not directly associate neoliberal assault with the AKP administration. Secondly, villagers have utilized both the ballot box and direct action in order to bargain with the AKP. Thirdly, although the AKP government did not fundamentally depart from neoliberalism, the return of agricultural subsidies, significant expansion of social assistance, and rapid infrastructure construction have secured a large rural following for the party. Finally, the AKP government has effectively used coercive methods to prevent the emergence of an emancipatory political alternative.

KEYWORDS:

• Authoritarian populism
• emancipatory rural politics
• social neoliberalism
• AKP
• Turkey

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) for the small grant that facilitated our research and KONDA Research and Consultancy for sharing their political survey data with us. We also thank Ali Rıza Güngen, Ayşe Nal Akçay, Deniz Sert, Eylem Taylan, three anonymous reviewers for JPS, and the participants of the ERPI 2018 International Conference in The Hague for their helpful critiques and suggestions about this paper. We are thankful to Alper Yıldırım and Alper Şükrü Gençer for their research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Burak Gürel http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1666-8748

Notes

1 The value of privatized assets increased from 8.2 billion dollars between 1995 and 2003 (Somer 2016, 492) to 59.9 billion dollars between 2003 and 2017 (Diken 2018).

2 A detailed analysis of the AKP’s making and unmaking of political alliances since 2002 is beyond the scope of this paper, but a brief summary is in order. Based on its alliance with Fethullah Gülen’s Islamist organization (which was strongly organized especially in the judiciary and security apparatuses of the state) and pro-Western liberals (who were strong in the media and intellectual circles) against the secular nationalists inside the military and civilian bureaucracy, which continued at least until the end of 2010, the AKP government completed a significant part of its Islamization agenda. AKP’s relationship with liberal circles rapidly deteriorated, especially after the suppression of the Gezi protests in June 2013. Following the breakup of Turkish Islamism (between the AKP and Gülenists) at the end of 2013, AKP allied with a sizeable portion of the previously suppressed secular nationalists against the Gülenists. Similarly, AKP negotiated with the Kurdish movement during the so-called ‘solution process’ between 2012 and 2015. The ultra-nationalist Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) repeatedly blamed AKP leadership for treason to the Turkish nation and state because of their participation in the solution process. AKP-MHP relations rapidly improved following the end of the solution process in 2015 and became an open partnership following the failed coup attempt (organized primarily by the Gülenists) on 15 June 2016. This partnership was instrumental in the passing of the constitutional amendment on 17 April 2017 and Erdoğan’s reelection to presidency on 24 June 2018.

3 A few examples may explain the AKP government’s unending zigzags in international relations. The then Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad openly celebrated their countries’ close relations during meetings in 2008 and 2009. However, Turkey provided significant support to anti-Assad opposition during the civil war after 2011. Escalating tensions between Russia and Turkey (due to their being on opposite sides of the Syrian war) resulted in the Turkish military’s downing of a Russian military aircraft on the Syrian border on 24 November 2015. On 25 August 2018, less than three years after the crisis, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu claimed that Russia and Turkey were ‘strategic partners.’ However, the Turkish government has not stopped its efforts to weaken the Russian-backed Syrian regime. Similar examples can be given with regard to Turkey’s relations with all major geopolitical actors since 2002.

4 For examples of this large and growing body of literature, see Esmer 2019; Keyman 2014; Somer 2016.

5 For examples of negative media coverage of agrarian change, see Büyüktaş 2016; Erboz 2017; Ertürk 2017.

6 On the other hand, although the urban labor movement has not been powerful enough to necessitate paramilitary violence, it has certainly been a factor behind increasing authoritarianism in Turkey. Between 2003 and 2018, the government banned 14 large-scale labor strikes that involved 192,000 workers. Nine of these strike bans took place after 2014 (Hak İnisiyatifi İstanbul 2018). In a speech given to Turkish investors in 2017, the president explained the strike bans:

We use the state of emergency for the business people’s benefit. Let me ask: Do you encounter any trouble, any delays in the business world [now]? When we assumed power [in 2002], there was [also] a state of emergency in Turkey, but all the factories were facing the threat of strikes. Remember those days. But now, thanks to the state of emergency, we immediately intervene in those workplaces that face the threat of strikes. (Bozkurt-Güngen 2018, 232)

The state of emergency was declared on 20 June 2016, five days after the failed coup attempt, and continued for two more years.

7 On the question of the use of welfare provision as an apparatus of political containment and mobilization of the poor, also see Yörük 2012.

8 As the Turkish economy currently enters into its severest downturn since 2001, the AKP will certainly face a formidable challenge to pursue social neoliberalism as before. We briefly discuss this in the last section, but a detailed discussion of the prospects of the AKP and its opponents in the light of the ongoing economic crisis is beyond the scope of this paper.

9 On 20 February 2018, the government announced that it would cover half of the gasoline expenditure of farmers ( Sabah February 20, 2018).

10 Livestock has been the most problem-ridden sector during the AKP era. The number of cattle and volume of red meat production were stagnant until the early 2010s. However, they have since steadily increased. The production of other major livestock products (chicken meat, egg, milk, and honey) has increased in the entire AKP period (Turkish Statistical Institute 2018).

11 Authors’ calculations based on World Bank 2018.

12 This is significantly below the OECD average of 21 percent (OECD 2018b).

13 For specific definitions of these rural groups see Bahçe and Köse 2017, 592–595.

14 For detailed fieldwork-based analyses of the relationship between Turkish farmers and Kurdish farm workers in different regions of Turkey, see Duruiz 2015; Pelek 2010.

15 The weakness of the center-left CHP is another factor behind the AKP’s regional power. As a hazelnut producer in the Ulubey district of Ordu told us, ‘The people can’t benefit from the other side [center-left]. There was Ecevit before, but now there is no one.’ Bülent Ecevit was the most popular leader of the center-left in the 1970s. He was the prime minister of the DSP-MHP-ANAP government between 1999 and 2002. Ecevit died in 2006.

16 Walden Bello (2018, 43) identifies a similar process in Thailand in the 2000s:

The complex character of Thaksin’s rural mass base stemmed from the fact that the spread of capitalist production relations and the commercialization of land had contradictory effects, impoverishing some while providing an opportunity for others, including people who were able to access the pro-Thaksin government support to help them build small businesses. Both losers and winners appeared to come together in support of Thaksin.

17 Based on the International Social Survey Program’s 2010 survey data, Ali Çarkoğlu (2017, 172) concludes that environmental issues have ‘little electoral importance’ in Turkey. Our analysis confirms this conclusion.

18 Information given in this paragraph is based on e-mail communications with Ayşe Nal Akçay (September 25&26 2018), who has conducted her dissertation research on resistance to hydropower plants in Turkey. For similar observations, see Hamsici 2011, 19–20.

19 As Cihan Tuğal (2017, 226) notes,

It is only through the activities of a leading sociopolitical organization that potentially anti-capitalist practices can become and/or remain anti-capitalist. A new benevolent path, therefore, would seek to discover charitable ethics and practices that would enhance the self-organization of the poor (even if the original donors are rich and some of the volunteers are from the propertied classes).

Although we think Tuğal underestimates the rich donors’ negative influence on solidarity organizations, we entirely agree with him that material solidarity activities should be an indispensable part of anti-capitalist politics.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Burak Gürel

Burak Gürel is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Koç University. He holds a PhD in sociology from Johns Hopkins University. His scholarly interests include political economy, historical sociology, rural development, social movements and welfare politics, with a focus on China, India and Turkey. Email: [email protected].

Bermal Küçük

Bermal Küçük is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Koç University. Her research interests are rural development, sociology of food and political ecology, with a focus on the labor and knowledge of women. Email: [email protected].

Sercan Taş

Sercan Taş is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Koç University. His research interests include rural development, urbanization, and environmental governance, with a focus on Turkey. Email: [email protected].