Turkish party system in the context of autocratization: from systemic de-institutionalization to systemic ossification

Polarization, fragmentation, and high level of electoral volatility were the three maladies of Turkish party system during 1990s (Ozbudun, 2013). In 2000s, Turkish party system has experienced important changes. Most prominent among these, was the rise of Justice and Development Party as a dominant party which accelerated the democratic backsliding and autocratization processes (Lührmann and Lindberg, 2019) in the country (Gümüşcü, 2013; Esen and Gümüşcü, 2016). How the democratic backsliding and autocratization processes have been affecting and transforming the three maladies of Turkish party system that caused party systemic destabilization in Turkey during 1990’s? This paper will try to answer this question in the context of democratic backsliding and autocratization through a temporal comparative analysis of party system in 1990’s/early 2000’s and post-2010 era. It empirically aims to show that stabilization of the party system between 2002 and 2018 rested on paradoxical developments such as incumbent party de-institutionalization and extreme polarization. In this paper, such form of systemic stabilization is conceptualized as party system ossification in which the root causes of systemic stabilization are not based on increasing legitimacy of political parties, public trust for political parties, and/or presence of institutionalized parties as the literature on party-system institutionalization posits (Mainwaring and Scully 1995). Rather, such systemic stabilization based on incumbent party de-institutionalization and extreme polarization. Based on the recent developments in Turkish party politics, this paper will also show that ossified party systems, while showing a certain level of stability, has a high potential for systemic de-stabilization due to the institutional decay of the incumbent parties.