Political Parties and Grassroots Clientelist Strategies in Urban Turkey: One Neighbourhood at a Time

Ark-Yildirim C.

SOUTH EUROPEAN SOCIETY AND POLITICS, vol.22, no.4, pp.473-490, 2017 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 22 Issue: 4
  • Publication Date: 2017
  • Doi Number: 10.1080/13608746.2017.1406431
  • Journal Name: SOUTH EUROPEAN SOCIETY AND POLITICS
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.473-490
  • Keywords: Clientelism, political patronage, local networks, urban politics, AKP, CHP, MACHINE POLITICS, ARGENTINA, ECONOMY, NEOLIBERALISM, MODEL
  • Istanbul University Affiliated: No

Abstract

Both principal Turkish political parties make extensive use of patron-client networks, but in very different ways. The CHP relies on competing local brokers and synchronous vote buying. The AKP is at the centre of a network of public and private funding turning social policy to clientelist ends. Socially anchored AKP activists link the party to voters, allowing it to target social assistance for political advantage and take credit for improvement in local conditions. The case presented in this paper provides a natural experiment suggesting that this distinction is an important explanation for the AKP's electoral success in low-income urban areas.