Locating Democratic Resilience: Women’s Movement as an Oppositional Actor in Turkey and its Strategies for Resistance

Conventional political science has conceptualised opposition mostly within the confines of institutionalised politics, associating it with political parties competing with the incumbent parties in free and fair elections. The growing literature on hybrid regimes seems to share this assumption as it focuses on fairness of electoral competition and obstacles faced by oppositional political parties (Schedler 2002; Levitsky and Way 2010). Competing under unfair conditions, oppositional political parties remain mostly ineffective, helping incumbents to maintain the process of “executive aggrandizement” (Bermeo 2016). But, is it possible to think about opposition or resistance beyond political parties and elections in a specific sub-type of hybrid regimes, i.e. competitive authoritarian regimes? If so, what are the strategies for oppositional activity under such regimes? This research aims at going beyond the assumptions of conventional political science and focuses on non-electoral political opposition of the women’s movement in Turkey, which is a competitive authoritarian regime (Esen and Gümüşçü 2016). Being one of the examples of long-lasting activism in Turkey, women’s movement has managed to sustain its democratic resilience and oppositional stance in Turkey’s “gendered” competitive authoritarianism (Kandiyoti 2016; Doyle 2018; Yabancı 2016). This research hypothesises that women’s movement in Turkey is a viable oppositional actor compared to political parties, which fail to challenge authoritarian incumbents, and seeks to analyse strategies that women employ in their opposition against the gendered competitive authoritarian regime. Contributing to the literature on hybrid regimes, this research intends to demonstrate the potential for oppositional activity and democratic resilience in contexts where mobilisation is risky and electoral competition is unfair.