Populist attitudes and challenges towards liberal democracy: An empirical assessment of the Turkish case
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121221119297 |
| Author | Ali Çarkoğlu,Ezgi Elçi |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121221119297
International Political Science Review
2023, Vol. 44(5) 729 –746
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/01925121221119297
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Populist attitudes and challenges
towards liberal democracy:
An empirical assessment of the
Turkish case
Ali Çarkoğlu
Koç University, Turkey
Ezgi Elçi
Özyeğin University, Turkey
Abstract
The rise of populism presents a challenge to liberal democracy in various countries. This article questions
how populist attitudes affect the democratic preferences of the electorate. Using representative survey data
fielded from Turkey in 2019, we first tested the effect of populist attitudes on illiberal democratic attitudes.
The results show the negative impact of populism on support for illiberal democratic attitudes. Next, we
analyzed which dimension of populism correlates with illiberal democratic preferences. Our results pointed
to the negative influence of the Manichean outlook on preferences concerning democracy. Contrary to
expectations, as anti-elitist and people-centric attitudes increase, support for illiberal democracy decreases.
Hence, the relative emphasis on different dimensions of populism is likely to shape the net balance of
its influence on democracy. Electoral alliance preferences also shape democracy preferences. The ruling
People’s Alliance voters are more supportive of illiberal democracy than the opposition blocs and parties.
Keywords
Populism, illiberal democracy, democratic backsliding, Turkey, survey analysis
Introduction
In recent years, the rise of populist parties has overlapped with a significant global democratic back-
sliding. To account for this simultaneity, Pappas (2014) argues that representative democracy is a
Janus-faced system where the liberal or populist democratic practices may occur simultaneously.
Corresponding author:
Ezgi Elçi, Department of International Relations, Özyeğin University, Çekmeköy Campus Nişantepe District, Orman
Street, Çekmeköy, İstanbul, 34794, Turkey.
Email: ezgi.elci@ozyegin.edu.tr
1119297IPS0010.1177/01925121221119297International Political Science ReviewÇarkoğlu and Elçi
research-article2022
Original Research Article
730 International Political Science Review 44(5)
While liberal democracy relies on multiple cleavages, overlapping consensus and constitutionalism,
populist democracy is built upon a single cleavage between the people and the elites, adversarial
politics and majoritarianism. Through the gradual erosion of fundamental elements of liberal
democracy, such as minority rights, the rule of law and the separation of powers, populism paves the
way for democratic backsliding, which can be defined as ‘the state-led debilitation or elimination of
any of the political institutions that sustain an existing democracy’ (Bermeo, 2016: 5).
The tension between populism and liberal democracy was accentuated by the rise of populist
politics, resulting in many consolidated democracies such as the United StTES, Italy, and Austria,
as well as Brazil, India, Hungary, Poland and Turkey, among others, to experience escalating illib-
eralism. While populists are seen as an illiberal challenge to democracies, some still define them
as a democratizing force that brought the demands of the unheard masses against irresponsive
elites to the agenda.
We aim to disentangle the question about the democratic nature of populism with reference to
Turkey, where the conservative populist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma
Partisi (AKP)) has been in power since 2002.1 Although the undemocratic and illiberal actions of
the AKP government gradually increased, they continued to win the elections over the last
20 years. Thus, Turkey appears to be an intriguing case to test the bottom-up autocratization
hypothesis (Galston, 2018; Svolik, 2019). While previous literature primarily focused on struc-
tural variables to understand democratization and de-democratization (e.g. Lipset, 1959), few
studies focused on individual factors that pave the way for the erosion of democratic norms and
practices (Singer, 2018) or support for autocratic regimes (Mauk, 2020). We argue that having
populist attitudes is a key to understanding support for illiberal democracies amid the global
democratic recession.
In early AKP’s tenure, Turkey was held up as a role model for the Muslim world with its flawed
but vibrant democracy, at a time when it was negotiating for European Union (EU) membership
and making advances towards settling its long-lasting ethnic conflict with its Kurdish minority
(Gülalp, 2010; Toprak, 2005). Despite diagnoses of some problematic perspectives, many experts
were optimistic about the future development of Turkish democracy. They saw Turkey as a role
model for the Muslim-majority countries, especially in the early aftermath of the Arab Spring (for
discussions, see Kirişçi, 2012). However, as the Arab Spring turned from a moment of liberal and
democratic hope across the region to a sustained backlash by authoritarian power structures, and
civil war erupted on Turkey’s southern border, AKP’s foreign policy emphasis on soft power and
‘zero-conflict with neighbors’ slowly eroded into explosive conflicts. On the domestic front,
democratization efforts were short-lived, and indicators of democratic performance declined
sharply after the 2011 elections (Öniş, 2015). Freedom House classified Turkey as ‘partly free’
until 2017 and afterward as ‘not free’. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project’s liberal democ-
racy index for Turkey continuously deteriorates from 2005 onwards. Worsening democratic stand-
ards and the continuing electoral success of the AKP provides an opportunity to test the linkage
between populist attitudes and support for liberal, as opposed to illiberal, democratic practices.
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to measure how particular dimen-
sions of populism augment support for illiberalism. Our analysis posits that populist attitudes are
conducive to the rise of illiberal democratic attitudes. When we disaggregate the dimensions of
populist attitudes, the moralistic understanding of society’s politics triggered by the Manichean
outlook appears as the most detrimental characteristic of populism on democracy. As Manichean
attitudes increase, respondents tend to support illiberal democratic practices. Our results also reveal
that as anti-elitist and people-centric attitudes increase, support for illiberal democracy decreases.
After discussing the concepts of liberal democracy and constitutional liberalism, we elaborate
on populism and its dimensions. Next, we discuss whether populism is a threat to or a corrective
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