The government’s symbiotic relations with interest groups and CSOS in Turkey: Pluralist or corporatist arrangements?

ABSTRACT On June 2020, the Turkish government passed a bill to establish multiple bars in the three major cities, Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, claiming to democratize bar associations. Opposition parties objected because they predicted that ‘splitting’ bar associations would divide secular institutions along political lines and diminish their role as human rights observers. This raises the question of whether a plurality of interest groups and civil society organizations fosters democracy. Based on previous experience of the government’s relationships with the business sector, trade unions, and civil society organizations, this study mainly asserts that although the number and impact of non-state actors has increased since the 2000s, suggesting pluralist politics, the AKP government has formed corporatist arrangements with ideologically close organizations, labelled as ‘domestic and national’, which also symbolizes a discursive switch from Islamism to populist Turkish nationalism. This symbiotic relationship creates a win-win situation for the government to gain regimented support for its Islamist-nationalist policies and retain power while the organizations benefit from greater access to economic and political resources.