Right-Wing Populism and Turkey’s Post-Hegemonic Populist Moment

Abstract: Populism, as a mode of political logic, always has been a significant factor within Turkey’s political landscape, and it strongly is associated with right-wing political parties. The AKP’s conservative democratic populism and neo-right-wing mission arose as a sui generis governmental orientation out of the organic crisis of the Kemalist regime by articulating the collective political passion and the common affects it engenders in the populace. This article argues that right-wing populism developed as a transformative politics embracing neoliberal economics that subverted the anti-status quo through a counter-hegemonic discourse and electoral strategy. The AKP’s empty signifier is an example of radical negativity with its antagonistic division between a hegemonic power bloc (corrupt elites) and an excluded underdog (pure people). However, within a post-democracy conjuncture, the AKP adopted a new radical right-wing populism based on a Turkish-Islamic synthesis. The party’s electoral hegemony is crumbling and ruptured by an authoritarian and illiberal politics that has created a post-hegemonic populist moment.