Clientelism, partisanship, and ideology

Abstract

This paper aims to highlight the role of clientelism in the Justice and Development Party's (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) electoral dominance in Turkish politics. Based on intensive fieldwork in Istanbul's one of the poorest and conservative districts of Bağcılar, it argues that the expansion of clientelist networks under the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi government has twofold ramifications, which in turn have reproduced the cycle of dominance. First, it strengthened clients’ partisan identification. Second, it changed clients’ ideology such that they became less resistant to or even supportive of neoliberal reforms that extensively undermined their well-being.