Populism and Democracy in Turkey: The Case of the Republican People’s Party

Abstract

This study will examine the main opposition party in Turkey, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and discusses the constitutive role of populism in the party’s discourse. Therefore, this study will highlight and compare the major cornerstones of the CHP’s populist discourse and its current manifestation. For this purpose, after some opening remarks on the historiography of populism in Turkey, this article will move on to analyze the three historical periods that have shaped the party’s populist appeal: the single-party era of 1923–1946; the 1970s, which saw the rise of left-populism in the party; and the social-democratic opening of the party in the late 1980s under the name of, first, the Social Democratic Party (SODEP) and subsequently the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP). The final section will provide an analysis of the party’s current performance and its discourse on contemporary Turkish political issues, to offer a critical debate on the continuity and ruptures within the CHP’s populist discourse and the potential for democratic left-populism in Turkish politics.