Political Culture in Turkey: Perceptions on Democracy, Citizenship, and Support for a Strong Leader. Evidence from Two Representative Samples

Turkish political system has been experiencing many transformations under the Justice and Development Party’s rule. Beginning with the regime type referendum in 2016, we are observing an unyielding leadership style, trying to justify an authoritarian rule with the understanding of majoritarian democracy. The new regime in Turkey also pushes for active citizenship from its supporters. These developments have raised questions regarding the transformation of the political culture in Turkey since the regime stability can only be achieved through the congruence of a political culture with the regime form. Thus, we explore the congruence between the political culture and regime transformation in Turkey. Many of the studies that had previously focused on this topic compartmentalized the issues by analyzing conceptions of majoritarian democracy, citizenship and the debates on strong leader/presidential system in Turkey. However, no previous research has examined/established the relationship between the perceptions of democracy, citizenship, and leadership as components of political culture. Hence, we test the congruence between the political culture and regime transformation in Turkey. Using two nationally representative samples from 2015 (ISSP Citizenship module, N=1509; PEW Global Attitudes, N=947) we measured conceptions of democracy and good citizenship as well as support for a strong leader instead of a parliamentary democracy. Structural equation model results reveal that Turkish citizens perceive democracy in two dimensions. While one dimension is about the state’s duties, the second is citizens’ rights. In the same analysis, we discover that there are three notions of being a good citizen in the Turkish public opinion: an active citizen, a dutiful citizen, and a helpful citizen. While only the notion of an active citizen predicts the citizens’ right dimension of democracy, all notions of a good citizen predict the state’s duties dimension of democracy. In a separate analysis, we reveal that those who are not satisfied with the way democracy works in Turkey still favor a democratic form of government instead of relying on a strong leader to solve Turkey’s problems. These results suggest that the political culture in Turkey is not that different from any other democracy. The main contributions of this research are threefold. Firstly, the findings reveal that Turkish political culture is not congruent with the regime transformation. Thus, even under the conditions of authoritarian backsliding, the changes in a nation’s political culture may lag behind the institutional change. Secondly, this study overturns the widely held belief about the support for strong leadership and a majoritarian democratic system in Turkey by showing that the Turkish political culture is not that different from any other democracy. Lastly, this finding motivates future research on the question how a regime legitimizes its authoritarian turn without establishing the cultural-institutional congruence.