Tracing Populism in Power and the Evolution of the AKP in Turkey

Abstract This article leverages an unambiguous case of populism – the Justice and Development Party ( AKP ) governments in Turkey – to present an alternative view capturing populism’s flexibility and dynamism. Using discourse analysis, elite interviews, and archival research, and in conversation with the comparative populism literature, I process-trace qualitative shifts in the AKP ’s populism from the party’s inception in 2001 to present day. We see that populism’s mobilization of popular energy did not falter in Turkey even after the image of an “establishment” to rally against became defunct. Instead, the zone of overlap between populist and nationalist discourses and tropes substantially grew thereafter, partly due to new domestic conditions and challenges facing the incumbents and partly to their reactions to international developments. The results highlight populism’s innovative uses and dynamic evolutions in its substantive contents and tactics over time, challenging leader-centric definitions and the view that populism is a stable set of ideas.