In this paper we examine how women candidates navigate electoral competition in Turkey’s hybrid political environment, where electoral institutions and personalised politics intersect. Turkey uses a closed-list proportional representation system with variable district magnitudes, shaped by high national thresholds and regional list dynamics. These institutional features would discourage personalised campaigns, yet there is a great deal of personal campaigning as women seek to make authentic connections with voters. We examine the relationship between engaging in personalised campaign activities and experiences of sexism and misogyny. Our expectation is that a campaign personalisation, whether focusing on personal characteristics or engaging in activities aimed at cultivating a “personal vote”, will encourage more negative experiences and experiences of sexism for women. In order to address this question, we employ a mixed methods approach to investigate the interplay between personalised campaigns, emotional campaign work and the experiences of women candidates in Turkey. The research design combines quantitative (an online candidate survey n = 153) and qualitative methods (in-depth interviews n=12 and campaign ethnographies n=8).
