Last decades have been witnessed to an increase in the numbers of feminist groups in Turkey. Many of these feminist groups have ideologically identified themselves either as Secular-Kemalist or Conservative-Islamists. Even though their demands from the center-right conservative governing party, the Justice and Development Party (JDP), have sometimes converged, these two branches of feminist groups have had different policy interests. Giving this background, this paper aims to analyze the extent to which the JDP has been responsive to the claims of the different branches of feminist groups, particularly to the conservative branch. The paper is organized in two-fold; first, the paper includes the analysis of party responsiveness to the feminist groups in terms of its legislative actions and policy positions. The main aim of this section will be to examine if the legislative actions and policy positions taken by the JDP has been consistent with the main interest of the feminist groups’ agenda, particularly those who takes a conservative stand. The second part of the paper will take a different analytical approach and investigate to what extent the feminist NGO members believe that the JDP acts for women. This part of the study will include a detailed analysis of the perception of party responsiveness at the levels of party position, government actions on women’s issues and MPs’ policy positions- with a specific focus on women MPs. The analysis of the ideas of the represented is significant for the study of women’s representation as it allows us to answer the crucial question of ‘whether the actions and policy positions of the representatives really reflects the concerns of the feminist groups in the society’. Therefore, taking such a two-fold analytical approach could shed some light on women’s substantive representation and be helpful to reflect a more complete picture of the party responsiveness to feminism in Turkey.
