This dissertation explores the role of opposition parties in autocratisation, focusing on Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP). By examining the CHP during the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule from 2002 to 2023, it reveals the complex roles and strategies of opposition actors. It challenges the binary view of opposition success or failure, suggesting that opposition parties like the CHP are dynamic entities within autocratic regimes. They can both combat and contribute to autocratisation through their discourse, policy decisions, and actions. By analysing the CHP’s evolving strategies, alliances, and discourse, the research underscores the opposition’s pivotal role in shaping Turkey’s political landscape. Employing a diverse methodology, including 20 elite interviews, 10 focus group discussions with 60 participants, archival research, and participant observation, the thesis introduces two new concepts: rigid opposition and flexible opposition. Initially, the CHP maintained a rigid opposition characterised by identity-based polarisation. However, over time, the party shifted to a more flexible approach, forging strategic alliances and adopting an inclusive discourse. This transformation underscores the adaptable nature of opposition strategies. However, the dissertation also notes that, while flexibility is essential in countering autocratisation, it also poses a risk of diluting party identity. Additionally, the dissertation examines the evolution of the CHP’s discourse. By comparing election campaigns and protests, the study shows how the CHP’s shift from an exclusionary to an inclusive discourse challenged the ruling AKP’s polarising populist narrative, while the previous exclusionary approach contributed to political polarisation. This inclusive discourse played a crucial role in the CHP’s success in the 2019 local elections. Furthermore, the thesis investigates the CHP’s strategic alliances and opposition coordination, probing the motivations and challenges encountered by CHP political elites. It identifies the primary challenges encountered by the CHP in maintaining cohesive opposition alliances and elucidates how these challenges affect the process of autocratisation in Turkey.

This paper explores the role of opposition parties within the context of global democratic erosion, with a focus on Turkey. It investigates the multifaceted role of opposition actors in the process of autocratisation, challenging conventional portrayals of them as mere victims or resilient forces. Drawing on a comprehensive analysis of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), spanning the critical period of 2002–2022 under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), this research uncovers how opposition strategies have evolved in response to changing political dynamics. The paper introduces two new concepts, rigid opposition and flexible opposition, to elucidate the adaptive nature of opposition strategies in the face of autocratisation. It underscores the transition of the CHP from a rigid stance, characterised by identity-based polarisation, to a more flexible approach, involving strategic alliances and inclusive discourse. This transformation is not a binary success–failure paradigm but rather a complex adaptation with inherent risks. While flexibility is crucial to limit autocratisation, its potential pitfalls carry the risks of contributing to autocratisation and the dilution of party identity. 

This study explores the changing discourse of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Turkey as it confronts a populist authoritarian government. By analyzing and contrasting discourses used in election campaigns and protests and focus group discussions it investigates opposition’s role in fueling or challenging the polarizing populist narrative of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This paper argues that autocratization is a dynamic process in which opposition parties play an active role, contributing to and opposing autocratization simultaneously, rather than being mere victims of the process. It claims that the CHP’s electoral and discursive strategy has shifted gradually under Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s leadership since 2010. Unlike the previous exclusionary discourse that legitimized the AKP’s polarizing, populist narrative, the party has adopted an inclusive discourse that has contributed to its victory in the 2019 local elections.

Diese Studie untersucht den sich wandelnden Diskurs der Republikanischen Volkspartei (CHP) in der Türkei, die sich mit einer populistischen autoritären Regierung konfrontiert sieht. Durch die Analyse und Gegenüberstellung von Diskursen, die im Wahlkampf, bei Protesten und in Fokusgruppendiskussionen verwendet werden, wird die Rolle der Opposition bei der Ankurbelung oder Herausforderung des polarisierenden populistischen Narrativs der regierenden Partei für Gerechtigkeit und Entwicklung (AKP) untersucht. In diesem Papier wird argumentiert, dass die Autokratisierung ein dynamischer Prozess ist, in dem die Oppositionsparteien eine aktive Rolle spielen, indem sie gleichzeitig zur Autokratisierung beitragen und sich ihr widersetzen, anstatt nur Opfer des Prozesses zu sein. Es wird behauptet, dass sich die Wahl- und Diskursstrategie der CHP unter der Führung von Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu seit 2010 schrittweise verändert hat. Im Gegensatz zum früheren ausgrenzenden Diskurs, der das polarisierende, populistische Narrativ der AKP legitimierte, hat die Partei einen integrativen Diskurs angenommen, der zu ihrem Sieg bei den Kommunalwahlen 2019 beigetragen hat.

This article explores the transformation of Turkey’s national and state identity under Justice and Development Party (JDP) rule in a spatial perspective by focusing on the counter hegemonic war on İstanbul’s panorama. (Re)construction of urban space have been used as means of transforming the ideologies into a concrete form and consolidating the symbolic power of the state in the everyday life. Urban space is not a static but dynamic “lieux de memoire” (the sites of memory) which reproduces the past, constructs the “new” and reflects state-society relations.  The new Republic of 1923 used space-politics to create a Westernized, modern and secular nation-state by detaching the urban space from the traces of Ottoman past. (Re)naming and (re)construction by using specific symbols and modern architecture was operated by Kemalists not only to consolidate the new state identity but also to transform the society. However, counter hegemonic attacks towards Kemalist policies which lays behind the two main political cleavages, modernists vs. traditionalists and Islamists vs. seculars, has existed throughout the Republican history. Beginning from 1980s, rising with the identity politics in 1990s Islamic politics has consolidated its power under the rule of JDP since 2002. While the hegemony of Kemalist secularism has been strongly weakened; the visibility of Islamists in the society and public life has increased in JDP era and a new form of state identity is created with the support of mass media, architectural designs, Islamic arts as well as discursive practices. Istanbul, with its symbolic, geographic and economic significance, would be a compatible field to explain the transformation of Turkey’s national and state identity in the urban space. As a capital of Ottoman Empire and the biggest metropolitan city of Turkey, İstanbul has been the center of hegemonic wars on urban space; each political group who hold the power has tried to redesign İstanbul throughout the Republican history. JDP revitalized the İstanbul’s symbolic power by attributing it as a “de facto” capital of Turkey. İstanbul’s transformation in the last decade such as construction of Panorama 1453 Museum as a reviving the Conquest of Istanbul, the boom in the mosque construction and Çamlıca Mosque Project, using Ottoman symbols in the public buildings and landscaping; and renaming the Boğaziçi Bridge as “July 15 Martyrs Bridge” are some crucial samples of ideological using of space politics. All in all, this article argues that JDP redefined the national and state identity as well as citizenship and used urban space as a means of consolidating its ideology. The article explains how Islamism, neo-Ottomanism and latest increasing Turkish nationalism are combined in the state identity and serve as the main pillars of nation building process under JDP rule. 

This article examines the role of opposition parties in the autocratization process of Turkey under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), focusing on the strategies and dynamics of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP). The research seeks to understand the key factors that have driven the CHP to form alliances, their contribution to opposition coordination, and the evolution of these alliances over time. It also investigates the motivations of CHP political elites and the challenges faced in maintaining cohesive opposition alliances. By examining the CHP's role in the autocratization process, the article contributes to understanding how opposition parties under autocratization can both challenge and inadvertently contribute to the consolidation of autocratic rule. The article analyzes the dynamics of regime transformation and the complex interplay between opposition strategies and autocratization within the Turkish context.