The AKP’s Ideological Hegemony Means More than Internal Party Disputes
The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center
Senior Research Fellow at the Institute Toni Alaranta wrote an article on the Turkish “Justice and Development Party” (AKP). The article was published in Turkey Analyst nro 6 on March 25th. Alaranta writes that it is crucial to appreciate that the main components of the AKP’s ideological “winning bloc” remain in place, even when leading representatives of the party clash. By conjuring the specter of an imagined, threatening “domestic other,” essentialist Islamic conservative nationalism has been able to form and sustain a collective political actor that is not going to be easily undermined by day-to-day intra-party polemics.