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The Turkish Party System in Transition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Sabri Sayari
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CONTINUITY RATHER THAN CHANGE WAS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE Turkish party system during its formative years in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Now, however, party competition in Turkey appears to be approaching a new phase of development. While some political analysts have described the emerging trends in the 1970s with reference to a ‘critical realignment’ in mass electoral behaviour, others have characterized the party system as going through a period of ‘flux and transition’. Indeed, the recent course of electoral politics in Turkey displays some significant changes. First, with the termination of the Justice Party's UP) dominant position in party competition, there has been a transition from a predominant party system to one of moderate pluralism in which the likelihood of coalition government has significantly increased. Secondly, the trend toward greater fragmentation in the party system which partially accounted for the JP's loss of dominance in 1973, appears to have been reversed in the 1977 parliamentary election as the two major parties made substantial gains at the expense of the minor parties. Thirdly, these changes have been accompanied by the increase of ideological polarization in the party system and the intensification of ideological cleavages among the party elites.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1978 , pp. 39 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1978

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References

1 Özbudun, E. and Tachau, F., ‘Social Change and Electoral Behavior in Turkey: Toward a “Critical Realignment”? International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, 1975, pp. 460–80.Google Scholar

2 Frey, F. W., ‘Patterns of Elite Politics in Turkey’, in Lenczowski, G. (ed.), Political Elites in the Middle East, Washington, DC, 1975, p. 79.Google Scholar

3 Sayari, S., ‘Some Notes on the Beginnings of Mass Political Participation in Turkey,’ in Akarh, E. and Ben-Dor, G. (eds.), Political Participation in Turkey, Istanbul, 1975, pp. 122–23.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., pp. 123–24. See also, Sayari, S., ‘Political Patronage in Turkey’, in Gellner, E. and Waterbury, J. (eds.), Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies, London, 1977, pp. 102–13.Google Scholar

5 See Mardin, S., ‘Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?’, Daedalus 102, 1973, pp. 169–90.Google Scholar

6 Sartori, G., ‘The Typology of Party Systems: Proposals for Improvement’, in Allardt, E. and Rokkan, S. (eds.), Mass Politics, New York, 1970, pp. 322–52Google Scholar, and Parties and Party Systems, London, 1976, pp. 192–201.

7 Sartori, ‘The Typology…’, p. 327.

8 The legal bans on the formation of a Communist Party, however, have remained. The TLP was outlawed following the March 1971 military intervention, but it was permitted to re-emerge in 1973 along with several other Marxist parties.

9 See Özbudun and Tachau, p. 475.

10 Ibid., pp. 472–73.

11 As spelled out by Sartori, the distinguishing features of moderate pluralism include the presence of 3 to 5 parties able to participate in governmental coalitions; the formation of governments through alternative coalitions; the prevalence of centripetal over centrifugal tendencies which facilitate moderate politics; and the absence of both anti-system parties and parties with centre placement along the Left/Right dimension. See Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, pp. 173–85.

12 During 1973–77, the dominant political force on the Left was the RPP whose social democratic orientation and commitment to fundamental socioeconomic changes have become more marked since the party’s veteran leader Inönü was replaced by Ecevit in 1972. Although there were several small Marxist parties on the extreme Left, none of them competed in the 1973 election. Among the legislative parties, the UP was most vociferous in defending extreme left-wing causes but its parliamentary strength was very limited. The remaining five parties in parliament belonged to the political Right, although with varying degrees of commitment to conservative cultural and economic policies. The extrème right-wing position was taken up by the neo-Fascist NAP. In terms of closeness to the Centre, the NAP was followed by the splinter DP and the staunchly pro-Islamic NSP. Another small splinter party, the RRP, sought to project the image of a Centre-Right party. But the dominant party of the Centre-Right was the JP. Under the leadership of Demirel since 1965, the JP has pursued a flexible and pragmatic orientation over the years which has enabled it to move towards both the Centre and the Right, depending on changes in the terms of party competition. During the four years following the 1973 election, for example, the JP’s ideological stand was discernibly closer to the extreme Right than to the Centre.

13 On economic policies, for example, the NSP’s stand is considerably to the Left of all the other parties on the Right. With respect to the religious issue, however, the NSP’s position is an extreme one, and contrasts especially sharply with another party included on the Right, the RRP, which maintains a formal adherence to the Kemalist interpretation of secularism. Finally, the NSP, the NAP, and the DP are all committed to a much more aggressive brand of nationalism than the JP or the RRP.

14 It is true, as Sartori suggests, that ideological antagonisms expressed through elite interactions in visible arenas of politics often overshadow the more pragmatic and bargaining- orientated style of elite interactions in the sphere of invisible politics, (Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, pp. 95–96.) But as Sani points out, elite behaviour in visible arenas of politics tend to have a much greater impact on the mass public with respect to the intensification or reduction of ideological cleavages. ( Sani, G., ‘Mass Constraints on Political Realignments: Perceptions of Anti-System Parties in Italy’, British Journal of Political Science, 6, 1976, p. 9.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 This aspect of polarization in Turkey appears to have much in common with the ‘polarized pluralism’ of the Italian party system. For an analysis of the delegitimization strategies used by the Italian parties, see Sani, op. cit., pp. 1–31.

16 See, for example, Hürriyet, May 15-June 3.

17 See, Flanagan, S. C., ‘The Japanese Party System in Transition’, Comparative Politics, 3, 1971, pp. 233–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 See Brass, Paul R., ‘Coalition Politics in North India’, The American Political Science Review, LXII, 12 1968, pp. 1174–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar