Monitoring the Recent Trend of Women’s Representation in Turkish Political Parties

This study aims to monitor the representation of women across Turkish political parties, laying a groundwork for the subsequent comparisons. Using PPDB Round 3 data initially, this study identifies institutional gaps or obstacles as a vertical cross-check. This pilot analysis is conducted in descriptive level, including 29 variables for the five competitive parties in the Turkish Lower House: the ruling JDP, the main opposition RPP, the far-right NMP, the GP, and the pro-Kurdish and ethnic PDP. Drawing on existing literature, independent variables are: (1) women’s inclusion in representation and candidacy, and (2) party leadership centralization. The dependent variable is the number of women candidates per party, while the control variables are 1) the external systemic factors, 2) the party family, and 3) the number of women elected in the prior parliamentary period, to enhance the reliability of the results. The following hypotheses derived from the literature to identify the obstacles to women’s representation and assess the degree of differentiation in Turkish case is listed as follows: (1) More party-level and (2) system-level gender quotas augment the number of women candidates, (3) the degree of centralization or (4) broader member participation in the candidate selection process increase the number of women candidates, (5) institutionalization of women’s sub-groups and (6) higher reservation or selection of women to party higher positions boost women’s numbers, (7) reduced candidacy requirements promote women’s candidacy. Preliminary results indicate that Turkish parties provide some financial incentives for women candidates rather than increased requirements. Secondly, left-leaning parties frequently tend to adopt gender quotas, resulting in reaching higher prevalence of women candidates; however, this does not guarantee higher numbers of elected women. In some cases, right-leaning parties have a stronger match between women candidates and those elected. Additionally, uniform rules for women’s candidacy are set out in the Law on Political Parties. With women holding 14% of Lower House seats and candidacy rates by party at 2.5–7.3%, the lack of effective system-level gender quotas magnifies the gaps and obstacles in front of women’s representation in the Turkish parliament.