A Stalled Party System Convergence? The Development of Party Systems in Western Europe and Turkey

This contribution will argue that the rise of the AKP seemed (but ultimately failed) to lead to a convergence of the Turkish party system towards West-European patterns, the competition between centre-left and centre-right catch-all parties with distinct social bases. Nation state-builders in western Europe coalesced with national-liberal and conservative parties of notables. However, the state-church and capital-labour cleavages led to the rise of externally-mobilised-mass parties, i.e. religious and socialist parties (Lipset/Rokkan 1965). After the Second World War, many Catholic parties obtained the support of economic and state elites, entered coalitions with liberal secular parties and became hegemonic parties - outcompeting socialist/social democratic parties. Although religious denomination and trade union affiliation remained for decades the best predictors for party voting, both increasingly competed as catch-all parties (Kirchheimer 1965). In contrast, the heirs of nation state builders in Turkey coalesced with social democratic thinking (but failing to become mass parties) into Kemalist-social democratic parties (DSP and CHP). After an Islamic mass integration party (Özbudun/Hale 2012) had emerged, from 2002 on it mainly competed with a social democratic party with nationalist stance and links to the state elite. However, it seemed that the AKP was about to transform into a Muslim democratic party like Catholic parties had transformed into Christian democrats (Hale 2005; Nasr 2005). If the social democratic opposition party had widened is social base among workers and trade unions, a democratic competition along western European lines seemed to be within reach. However, three factors stopped such a transformation. First, the 10 % threshold fostered polarization (Tepe 2013). Second, the CHP did not forsake its links to the military and state elite. Finally, the AKP responded to the threat posed (or perceived) by the Constitutional Court and the religious lay organization of F. Gülen with the ‘occupation’ of state bureaucracy and judiciary.