‘Populism as a medium of mass mobilization’: The case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Introduction

For a leader who has been in power for 14 years, for a leader whose party won all legislative and local elections since 2002, for a leader who came from a poor family from the backstreets of Istanbul and became the first President of the Republic of Turkey elected by popular vote, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political journey ¹ is nothing but a success story.

This personal journey also symbolizes a transformation of pro-Islamist political parties in Turkey. In the 1970s, Erdoğan himself began his political career as the head of the Beyoğlu-Istanbul Youth Branch of the Milli Selamet Partisi (MSP, National Salvation Party), which was a pro-Islamist political party under the leadership of the legendary head of the pro-Islamist political wing in Turkey, Necmettin Erbakan. In the 1980s, Erdoğan became the Istanbul provincial head of Erbakan’s Refah Partisi (RP, Welfare Party), which was another Islamic-oriented political party that rose from the ashes of the MSP, which had been shut down after the military coup on 12 September 1980.

In the 1990s, Erdoğan turned himself into a ‘wonder kid’ in the eyes of the pro-Islamist political tradition. First, in 1994, he was elected as the mayor of Istanbul, a city that has a symbolic value for pro-Islamists as the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Through the lens of supporters of the RP, this extraordinary triumph was seen and celebrated as the second conquest of the city of Constantinople following the first led by Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. Then, when Erdoğan was given a ten-month prison sentence because of a poem that he read during a speech in Siirt (a small province located in the southeast of the country) in 1997, followers of the RP and others in the pro-Islamist political continuum perceived him as a holy martyr representing the victimization of religious people in a secular Turkey. Without any doubt, this sentence increased his popularity among the public. While fortune paved the path to Erdoğan’s rise, another political party, the Fazilet Partisi (FP, Virtue Party), which succeeded the RP after its shutdown by the Constitutional Court, was established.

Within the FP there was an undeniable tension. The party was dominated for a long period by the very turbulent relationship between two factions – those criticizing the old-school policies of Erbakan and Erbakan’s supporters called ‘the white-haired’ because of their long history within the party. Whilst ‘the white-haired’ tended to oppose any call for change and declared loyalty to their leader Erbakan, the ‘young wing’, represented by such figures as Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç, believed in the need for change to address the new political and social conditions in Turkey and supported the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In other words, the tension was not between the young and the old, the reformist and the traditionalist, but more specifically between Erbakan and Erdoğan. ² But the last word was again spoken by the Constitutional Court, and following a court ruling, the FP was shut down just like its predecessors. The shutdown of the party triggered a brand-new process and in 2001, the traditionalists established the Saadet Partisi (SP, Felicity Party) whereas Erdoğan and his friends formed the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP, Justice and Development Party).

In the general election, which was held on 3 November 2002, the AKP gained the majority of the votes. Erdoğan was the victor but he was not a member of parliament. Due to the court’s decision, which had made it impossible for him to be elected as an MP, he could not participate in the elections. But, in 2003, after a series of legal debates and adjustments that led to a renewed election in Siirt, he finally became a member of parliament. Until the renewed election, Erdoğan was the head of the party and Abdullah Gül was Prime Minister of the cabinet. But, with the election in 2003, the double-visaged outlook of the AKP finally ended and Erdoğan took over the Prime Minister’s office. Erdoğan won impressive victories during the general elections in 2007 and 2011, and local elections in 2004, 2009 and 2014. In 2014, he became the first directly elected president of the Republic of Turkey.

Erdoğan has stamped his mark on Turkish politics over the last 14 years. This offers us an opportunity to explore the art of politics and leadership in action. Using an interpretative-textual analysis of Erdoğan’s speeches and statements, this paper seeks to provide a framework to illustrate how Recep Tayyip Erdoğan uses populism as a medium of mass mobilization in times of crisis. The paper consists of three sections. The first section briefly discusses the concept of populism. The second section describes political crises in Turkish politics during the AKP era. The third section of the paper explains the case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with a particular emphasis on the relationship between politics and populism. My argument is that Erdoğan’s leadership can best be understood by taking into account how he manages political crises through populist strategies.

Populism and mass mobilization

Studies on populism are marked by the vagueness of the notion. Researchers have referred to ‘ambiguities’ of populism (Arato, 2013: 156; De La Torre, 1992: 412; Weyland, 2001: 1; Herkman, 2017: 470). For instance, Laclau (2005a: 3) mentions ‘the apparent vagueness of the concept’. Canovan (1999: 3) sees populism as ‘a notoriously vague term’. Panizza (2005: 1) emphasizes ‘the lack of clarity about the concept’. Howarth (2005: 203) notes that ‘a comprehensive and universal theory of populism has proved elusive’. In a similar vein, Arditi (2005: 74) underlines ‘the disagreement around populism’ by stressing different approaches to the concept. Reyes (2005: 100) refers to ‘the notorious indeterminacy of populism’s ineliminable core’. Stavrakis (2005: 229) speaks of ‘the difficulties in arriving at a commonly acceptable and operational definition of populism’. As a matter of fact, the ambiguity surrounding the concept is a byproduct of the multi-dimensional nature of populism. The concept of populism might simultaneously refer to ‘a movement, an ideology, a political practice’ (Laclau, 2005b: 32).

Populism as all three ‘is best seen as an appeal to “the people” against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society’ (Canovan, 1999: 3). As Howarth (2005: 204) has pointed out, populism is ‘grounded on the construction of an underdog/establishment frontier’. Following Stanley’s (2008: 102) approach, this study will employ the term populism as the intertwinement of four major concepts: ‘The existence of two homogeneous units of analysis: “the people” and “the Elite”, the antagonistic relationship between the people and the elite, the idea of popular sovereignty, and the positive valorization of “the people” and denigration of “the elite”’. In so doing, the study will also rest on Molyneux and Osborne’s (2017: 2) definition of populism as an ‘effect, a style, a syndrome, a device – or series of devices – involving, to varying degrees and intensities, the myth of direct popular power – a component of politics of different shades’.

Populism is a powerful discursive instrument in times of crisis. Political, social or economic crises provide an opportunity for populist leaders to reformulate their arguments through the rhetoric of war. As Lowndes (2005: 146) has pointed out, populist discourse ‘has greatest purchase as an active political force in moments of crisis, when popular sovereignty, and national identity itself, are open to new interpretations.’ Hence, at the point of crisis, populism turns into a double-visaged political category. On the one hand, it articulates a potential reaction to political opponents or enemies. On the other hand, it encourages the masses to express their views, concerns and emotions through demonstrations and protests. It imbues the people with the idea of mobilization. Ultimately, it reaffirms the legitimacy and rightfulness of the populist political actor who claims to act in the name of the people. In sum, as Canovan (1999: 4) has indicated:

populism is not just a reaction against power structures but an appeal to a recognized authority. Populists claim legitimacy on the grounds that they speak for the people: that is to say, they claim to represent the democratic sovereign, not a sectional interest such as an economic class.

Accordingly, in moments of crisis, mass mobilization becomes the ultimate aim of populism. First, through mass mobilization, the mutual ties between the leader and the mass are reaffirmed. Second, mass mobilization is an instrument of crisis management. Populist leaders tend to conceive of populism as a way to deal with the unexpected political dangers, social events or economic crises that are likely to threaten their legitimacy and power. Third, mass mobilization is a concrete extension of populist leaders’ inclination for creating political enemies. This dimension of populist strategy is compatible with the fact that ‘politics always entails an us/them distinction’ (Mouffe, 2005: 56).

What makes populism as a medium of mass mobilization so influential is the fact that populism itself is located in the very gap between ‘us and them’. This gap creates a set of opportunities for populist leaders to reformulate their political strategies. Through these strategies, populist political leaders inform ‘the people’ of the burning necessity of being alert to potential dangers that are posed by ‘the elite’, or ‘the enemy’. It is this peculiarity that brings to the forefront the question of what processes are involved in the construction of populism as a medium of mass mobilization. It might appear at first sight to be ‘old-fashioned’, but using an Althusserian approach to analyse the process by which populism transforms itself into a medium of mass mobilization may be helpful. As is known, in critically analysing the descriptive inclination of the Marxist theory of the State, Louis Althusser argues that state is not a mere mechanism of repression but something much more complex. That is to say, the State has not only repressive apparatus but also Ideological State Apparatuses ‘which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions’ and range from the family or the education system to the arts or the mass media (Althusser, 1971: 138, 142–143). Accordingly, one might argue that the transformation of populism into a medium of mass mobilization is a socio-political process that is accompanied by a set of ‘ideological state apparatuses’. In other words, populism is a medium of mass mobilization due to its capacity to ‘interpellate individuals as subjects’ (Althusser, 1971: 170). As Žižek (2006: 557) points out, ‘populism by definition contains a minimum, an elementary form, of ideological mystification, although it is effectively a formal frame or matrix of political logic that can be given different political twists (reactionary-nationalist, progressive-nationalist)’. In the final analysis, these apparatuses that operate within the process of ‘ideological mystification’ obscure the complex dynamics in which creating political enemies becomes a necessity for populist political leaders.

In this context, with the aid of the medium of mass mobilization, populism always attempts to create a terrain in which people can react to economic and political elites or ‘enemies’. For populist leaders, organizing demonstrations, rallies, marches and managing social media campaigns are part of such an attempt. This political strategy enables populist leaders to energize the mass for political aims and helps the leaders draw public attention to a certain issue or sometimes to divert the attention from socio-political problems. Particularly in moments of crisis, populist leaders benefit from a certain form of communication, which can be called ‘populist communication’ that ‘manifests itself by emphasizing the sovereignty to the people, advocating for the people, attacking elites, ostracizing others, and invoking the heartland’ (Engesser et al., 2017: 1111).

Despite the fact that his study does not seek to introduce a comparative perspective, it should be stated that populism as a medium of mass mobilization is not peculiar to the case that will be discussed in this paper. As Kaltwasser (2012: 184) has pointed out, ‘Populism is not a marginal phenomenon in the contemporary world. Since the 1990s, both in Europe and Latin America a (re)emergence of populist actors and parties has taken place.’ For instance, analysing the rising support for populist parties, Inglehart and Norris (2016: 2) demonstrate that:

Across Europe, their average share of the vote in national and European parliamentary elections has more than doubled since the 1960s, from around 5.1% to 13.2%, at the expense of center parties. During the same era, their share of seats has tripled, from 3.8% to 12.8%.

The case of Latin America is particularly important here for ‘populism is an indelible feature of the Latin American political landscape’ (Doyle, 2011: 1466). For instance, comparing the regimes of Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia which suffered from multi-dimensional crises, De La Torre (2013: 47) emphasizes that ‘populist Manichaean discourse transforms democratic rivals into enemies’. Analysing Latin American populisms, De La Torre (1992: 396) also mentions such significant variables as ‘personalistic charismatic leadership, Manichaean discourse, political clientelism and patronage, the social history of populisms’. Through ‘an analysis of the 14 presidents elected in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela between 1990 and 2010’, Levitsky and Loxton (2013: 125) have indicated that ‘populist presidents have both incentives and a distinctive capacity to assault institutions of horizontal accountability, and that when they succeed the result is almost always competitive authoritarianism.’ Accordingly, in many Latin American countries, ‘mass mobilization, especially of the lower classes or loosely defined popular sectors, is a definitional property of populism’ (Roberts, 2006: 129).

At this point, in order to understand populism as a medium of mass mobilization, one can take a look at the relationship between mass clientelism and populism. Mass clientelism can be broadly defined as a ‘practice of using state resources to provide jobs and services for mass political clienteles, and usually involves party organizations and electoral politics’ (Van de Walle, 2007: 3). Through the mechanism of patronage, mass clientelism is a tactical extension of populist strategy. The togetherness of tactics and strategy for populist political leaders is based on the commonality of the ultimate aim. This ultimate aim is to win or hold the power to govern. In addition to the impact of ideological state apparatuses that has been discussed above, mass clientelism as a tactical instrument also contributes to the construction of populism as a medium of mass mobilization. Through a populist discourse that functions as a ‘reminder’, mass political clienteles are stimulated to remember and protect their economic and symbolic gains. This function of populist discourse is particularly significant in developing countries since ‘clientelism is intimately linked to poverty and inequality’ (Stokes, 2013: 20). The intertwinement of the influence of ideological state apparatuses and mass clientelism in the construction of populism as a medium of mass mobilization is a phenomenon that can also be observed in Turkey during the AKP period. Although it is not peculiar to the AKP, like its predecessors:

the AKP has formed new clientelist and patronage relations with several large construction companies that receive lucrative contracts for major public works projects . . . in return for receiving lucrative contracts, the companies make large donations to the AKP for use in its election campaigns and also purchase TV stations and newspapers that they then turn into mouthpieces for disseminating pro-AKP views (Sayarı, 2014: 665).

Turning to our discussion of the concept of populism, it is possible to assert that populism can also become a vital part of political ideologies such as nationalism that give impetus to mass mobilization. For instance, in the case of China, populist nationalism ‘offers a political resistance and a moral protest against imperialist domination’ (Xu, 2001: 132). Similarly, Herkman (2016: 11) stresses that in different Nordic countries such as Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, populist discourse is linked with a ‘nationalist approach’. In many cases, this protest is oriented to ‘foreign’ or ‘domestic’ enemies, which create a suitable atmosphere for mass mobilization. Populist leaders use the strategy of demonization to keep this atmosphere alive. For instance, Singh (2017: 24) argues that ‘evoking a prelapsarian nationalism’ and ‘a binary us versus them division’, Donald Trump himself ‘powerfully confirms populism’s conceptual fluidity.’ It is clear that this strategy may take more or less aggressive forms in different contexts. As Smilov and Krastev (2008: 9) demonstrate through case studies in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, ‘there are more and less radical versions’ of populism.

Undoubtedly, context shapes the route of populism. As O’Brien (2015: 343) noted, ‘populism in the twenty-first century has taken on a variety of forms that echo the specific socio-political and cultural context’. Populism turns itself into a medium of mass mobilization by manipulating external factors. For instance, in the case of Italy, ‘the growing dissatisfaction with the poor quality of democracy and the obvious shortcomings of the public administration prepared the ground for populism from the end of the 1960s’ (Tarchi, 2015: 276-277).

As noted, populism has also been a significant component of Turkish politics. Apart from the Kemalist version of populism (halkçılık) that has a secular-solidaristic outlook:

political leaders used populism in the multiparty era to articulate the people’s discontent with the current state of society and politics by challenging the ‘establishment.’ Leaders engaged in a populist discourse based on both patrimonialism and patriarchy. Through this pragmatic discourse that is characterized by a binary opposition between good and evil, political leaders attempted to create a romantic identification with the people (Türk, 2017: 608).

Populism’s ‘romantic view of the purity of the people’ (De La Torre, 2013: 29) is accepted and internalized by political leaders in Turkish politics. Such an acceptance enables the leaders to present themselves as the defenders of that purity. Hence their political position is not limited to speaking on behalf of the people. Rather, the leaders claim that they are destined to protect ‘their people’ at any cost. They turn themselves into the representatives of an ultimate purity through a majoritarian approach, which makes populism, in Bernard Crick’s (2005: 631) words, ‘a spectre haunting democracy’. This is also an opportunity to romanticize their relationship with the people.

Attempting to maintain an organic tie with the people, the leaders manipulate existing cultural conflicts within the socio-cultural field in order to keep their supporters together in a much stronger way. Adapting themselves to changing conditions, these leaders, who have a certain elasticity, adopt a techno-cultural perspective about politics. On the one hand, they follow a very pragmatic agenda by simply appealing to the people with a particular emphasis on how they ‘serve the people’ through their economic or social policies; on the other hand, they emphasize how they advocate the cultural values of the people. Here one might speak of ‘a strong element of complementarity between populism and technocracy’ which ‘opposes to the political regime of party democracy’ (Bickerton and Accetti 2017: 188, 200).

Despite the similarities between different populist strategies in different contexts, needless to say there are some remarkable differences between them due to factors such as history, social dynamics, political culture, economic structure and so forth. However, it is beyond doubt that the case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is worth examining for those who seek to make sense of populism as a medium of mass mobilization in Turkish politics. From this descriptive framework, the paper moves on to focus on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a case study, describing the characteristics of his style of populist leadership. But before doing so, the paper will briefly describe the political crises in Turkish politics during the AKP era.

Political crises during the AKP era

The AKP era in Turkish politics has been marked by a set of political crises. These crises are important in making sense of Erdoğan’s understanding of populism and leadership. In this section, the paper will first briefly introduce three historical turning points that refer to political crises in Turkish politics during the AKP era and then summarize and review some major prominent features of Erdoğan’s understanding of politics and his style of populist leadership.

Populism and Erdoğan’s style of leadership

How would one pinpoint the major characteristics of Erdoğan’s way of facing and challenging political crises through a set of populist strategies? How would one describe the characteristics of his style of populist leadership? From this point on, moving from a descriptive framework, the paper will highlight these characteristics with reference to the examples that have been discussed above.

First of all, Erdoğan is a leader concerned with maintaining an organic relationship between himself and his voters, (i.e. in his words, ‘his people’). From the early stages of his political career, he has developed a very particular sensitivity about how people in Turkey act and react. As an example, which might seem very trivial, Erdoğan never crosses one leg over the other during Turkish TV appearances while answering journalists’ questions, as a small gesture of respect to the audience. However, in interviews with foreign journalists on international TV channels, he crosses his legs in a natural manner. The meaning of this small change in attitude is not only related to the fact that during interviews, foreign journalists next to Erdoğan choose to sit with their legs crossed, so Erdoğan needs to respond to them in his body language, but it is also related to Erdoğan’s awareness of the fact that the audience watching an international TV channel is different.

As a populist leader, Erdoğan attempts to construct the political relationship between himself and the masses as a personal, sacred and almost erotic relationship. He tends to formulate this relationship as if it was a legendary love affair. At the end of many speeches, Erdoğan reads the lyrics of a famous song called ‘Bana her şey seni hatırlatıyor’ (‘Everything reminds me of you’), and this song, therefore, is transformed from an ordinary love song into a political hymn, which tells the story of the togetherness of the leader and his people. From the perspective of Erdoğan and his supporters, this song is thought to present the ordeals that Erdoğan and his people have faced. Erdoğan usually changes a word of the song and instead of ‘seni’ (‘of you’ in singular form), he uses ‘sizi’ (‘of you’ in plural form).

The success of Erdoğan lies in this personal and erotic relationship between himself and his voters. Erdoğan never quits mentioning the genuine nature of this relationship. He communicates with the people in a common manner as ‘one of them’, which is one of the major characteristics of populist rhetoric. During the political crises of 2007, 2013 and 2016, it was this relationship between Erdoğan and his voters that made it possible to overcome the challenges. Therefore, the distinctive feature of Erdoğan’s leadership rests on the very nature of this relationship. The relationship is built upon Erdoğan’s key term ‘Milli İrade’ (‘national will’), which might in short be described as a majoritarian perspective on democracy. ‘Milli İrade’ is also a part of Erdoğan’s populist strategy and functions as a medium of mass mobilization.

Second, Erdoğan uses the element of surprise in a very successful manner. In the crisis of 2007, his decision to have a snap election was not only a simple political decision that required courage but also a manouvre that surprised the actors of the political establishment. In 2013, against the Gezi Park protestors, he immediately played the card of organizing alternative rallies at the risk of raising tensions. Similarly, in 2016, the fact that he urged people to take to the streets was another important political step that reflects his great timing. Hence, one might argue that the commonality that links these three moments of crisis is the use of populist strategy based on mass mobilization.

Third, Erdoğan’s ultimate populist political strategy is always constructed in accordance with existing cultural conflicts between AKP voters and non-AKP voters. Erdoğan is a man of political arithmetic. He is aware of the fact that it is impossible to get the support of all social strata and classes. He tends, therefore, to reinforce the socio-cultural base on which his own support rests (i.e. in his words, ‘the fifty per cent’). In a similar vein, Erdoğan knows that sometimes the best way to solve a crisis is to be the one who creates it. Just three days after the coup attempt in July, Erdoğan announced that ‘whether they want or not, we will build Topçu Military Barracks in Taksim’. ¹³ Considering the decision to reconstruct Topçu Military Barracks in Taksim was one of the reasons for the Gezi Park protests, this example clearly shows that he continually tampers with cultural signifiers and divisions.

Fourth, Erdoğan’s approach to politics itself is another reason for his leadership success in dealing with political crises. For Erdoğan, politics is a techno-cultural field of activity. The construction of gigantic bridges together with the building of roads or dams and the provision of social services are presented to the people as concrete examples of public service. Using populist rhetoric, Erdoğan also attaches a cultural and sacred meaning to these services. In 2013, he said:

Everything can be sacrificed for roads because roads are civilization. In our values, roads do not recognize any obstacle. Even if there is a mosque in front of a road, we would demolish that mosque and rebuild it somewhere else. ¹⁴

One might ask what construction projects have to do with political crises, but for Erdoğan, when it comes to politics, everything is connected. Through his lens, politics is a gargantuan system of connections.

Accordingly, Erdoğan advocates that these public services, which also have a cultural value, are another reason why political enemies attack him and his party. For instance, in 2016 he declared:

Why is the West jealous of us? Because of these dams. Why is the West jealous of us? Because of Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge [the third Bosporus bridge]. Why is the West jealous of us? Because of the Marmaray subways beneath the Bosporus. ¹⁵

In Erdoğan’s political rhetoric, references to the West – or, in particular, to Europe and the EU – often go hand in glove with pejorative connotations. The West and Europe, as Düzgit (2016: 55) mentions, are ‘largely negatively represented as “an unwanted intruder in Turkish politics”, “an essentially discriminatory entity” and “inferior” to Turkey on political and economic (and sometimes normative) grounds.’ Demonization is an unchanging feature of Erdoğan’s populist strategy.

Fifth, Erdoğan is extremely successful in adapting himself to changing conditions. This characteristic of Erdoğan’s approach to politics can best be seen in his way of pondering the political contest. Even as a leader whose actions are demarcated by the codes of modern representative democracy, he thinks of democratic competition as a pure power struggle in ancient times. As mentioned above, pinpointing enemies is another feature of Erdoğan’s art of politics. In so doing, Erdoğan constantly refers to various political enemies who tend to make alliances against him and the country itself. The advantage of this constant emphasis upon the very existence of political enemies is threefold: (a) to enable Erdoğan to strengthen the bonds between him and the voters by pinpointing the common enemy through a populist discursive strategy; (b) to allow Erdoğan to see how those within his close circle act and react against the enemy (at this point, the existence of a threat is a loyalty test for those around Erdoğan and the higher echelons of bureaucracy); and (c) to provide Erdoğan with new opportunities for making new political alliances. In sum, demonization of political enemies for Erdoğan is also a search for political friendships.

One might recall what Erdoğan said in the wake of the 15 July coup attempt: ‘As a milestone, I hereby withdraw all the cases filed for insulting me and forgive all the offenders.’ ¹⁶ Additionally, he thanked the leaders of opposition parties for not giving credit to the 15 July coup attempt. Against the threat of the Fethullah Gülen Movement, Erdoğan also held out the olive branch to those secularist groups such as the Kemalists who he once accused of plotting to overthrow him. This political gesture indicated how talented Erdoğan was in forming new alliances even with those who were his former political enemies.

Sixth, Erdoğan is capable of conducting post-crisis analysis following astonishing political developments. After listening to one of his speeches, one might conclude that Erdoğan is a leader who never admits his mistakes. But, on the contrary, this is just an appearance, and in this context, observers of Turkish politics should remember that appearances are deceptive. Erdoğan is a leader who definitely learns from his political mistakes. Otherwise, the AKP would not have been established nor would Erdoğan have progressed on a political career path from mayor of metropolitan Istanbul to the twelfth president of the Republic of Turkey. It is helpful to note how Erdoğan reacted in the wake of the failed coup attempt by asking himself the vital question for a politician: ‘What did I learn from this?’

In a similar vein, Erdoğan also tends to make political U-turns. As Lancester pointed out, Erdoğan often ‘tries to reinterpret the political environment to suit himself’ (2014: 1681) as the example of the Gaza Flotilla Raid demonstrates. In 2010, Israel stopped ships delivering aid to Gaza and breaking the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara was caught up in a military operation that resulted in the deaths of ten Turkish activists. This raid led to a diplomatic rift between Israel and Turkey that lasted six years. ¹⁷ In the wake of the raid, Erdoğan asserted that Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara was a casus belli. ¹⁸ In 2014 he also stated that the ‘Gaza freedom flotilla’ got permission from the AKP government. ¹⁹ But when an agreement to end the tension between Israel and Turkey was made in 2016, Erdoğan’s anger was aimed at those who organized the Gaza freedom flotilla and criticized the agreement between the two countries. Erdoğan stated:

Did you ask the then-prime minister (himself) to carry such humanitarian aid from Turkey? We had already sent the necessary aid there to Gaza by that time and we are providing aid now. […] We did these things not with a flourish of trumpets but with decency and propriety, and we are continuing to do this. ²⁰

Seventh, Erdoğan never gives up setting political goals for himself and the AKP. This political attitude creates an atmosphere of political energy for populist mass mobilization in which not only party members but also the voters themselves are encouraged and motivated by an almost mystical sense of mission. In this respect, it is also possible to assert that Erdoğan considers politics itself as a grandiose mission. This feeling of mission is reflected in Erdoğan’s political vision as well. Erdoğan does not only lead the people but also tries to share his political vision with them. The political vision to which Erdoğan almost always refers is, on the one hand, an extension of Erdoğan’s techno-cultural understanding of politics, and on the other, a reflection of his desire to distance himself and his party from the other leaders and parties. This political vision is also a promise of the continuance of public services and gigantic investments. In this respect, as Erdoğan frequently mentions, there are three phases to the AKP’s political vision. The first phase of this political vision is the year 2023, which is the centennial of the founding of the Republic of Turkey; the second phase is the year 2053, which is the sexcentenary of the conquest of Istanbul by Sultan Mehmed II, and the last phase is the year 2071, which is the millenary of The Battle of Manzikert which was a turning point with regard to the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks.

Eighth, Erdoğan is a political leader who can be very pragmatic in working with those within his close circle. This is important in understanding Erdoğan’s leadership success. For those whom he chooses to work with, the ultimate criterion is a synthesis of loyalty and merit. If there is a disruption in the balance between loyalty and merit, Erdoğan’s final choice is always loyalty. Along these lines, one prominent characteristic of Erdoğan is that he defends his teammates against rising criticisms from people and the media. In other words, his major tendency is not to let his teammates be sacrificed or scapegoated. For instance, in the aftermath of the coup attempt on 15 July 2016, despite the fact that Erdoğan himself declared that there was an intelligence failure and he learned of the coup attempt from his brother-in-law, he did not urge the resignation of the chief of the Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT, National Intelligence Agency) or the Chief of General Staff. On the other hand, when he feels a danger or threat to his own post, he never hesitates to take serious measures. In this regard, the case of Ahmet Davutoğlu is quite instructive. Davutoğlu, who was a predecessor to the current Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, announced his resignation following a series of tensions between him and Erdoğan. But, before his resignation, on an anonymous Turkish blog named Pelican Brief ²¹ , Davutoğlu was described as a backstabber who tried to undermine Erdoğan. ²² As the case of Davutoğlu indicated, whenever Erdoğan feels ‘a disturbance in the force’ or a threat to his leadership, the ones who are thought to pose a threat to his leadership are strictly excluded from Erdoğan’s close circle. From that point on, some foggy speculations are likely to become attached to them and their political careers are likely to wither away.

Ninth, Erdoğan always knows how to turn a crisis into an opportunity. He turned the crisis in 2007 into an opportunity for a snap election and derived a populist strategy that was based on the idea that there was disrespect for the will of the people, and this strategy worked. In 2013, throughout the Gezi Park protests and 17/25 December incidents, his strategy was based on the importance of economic and social stability, and not only for the AKP’s conservative voters, but also for other right-wing voters, stability was a delicate issue. Considering the volatile and unstable nature of Turkish politics in the 1990s, the AKP period was one of stability, which is quite an important characteristic for the voters in Turkey. As a response to these crises, Erdoğan organized alternative rallies that reflect his understanding of populism as a medium of mass mobilization.

Despite the fact that the AKP failed to win a parliamentary majority in the general election on 7 June 2015, Erdoğan took advantage of the voters’ fear of turning back to the 1990s and at the same time prevented the formation of a coalition government. As Sayarı (2016: 267–268) put it:

[Erdoğan] was apparently convinced that the outcome of the June vote did not reflect the AKP’s real electoral strength and that a new round of balloting would enable the AKP to recoup its losses… he wanted a new election and the re-establishment of single-party majority rule under the AKP to realise his goal of transforming Turkey’s parliamentary system into presidentialism.

At this point, one should emphasize that the transition to the presidential system is Erdoğan’s ultimate political desire and Erdoğan ‘defends the presidential system on the ground of strengthening executive powers and criticizes the separation of powers, constitutional checks and balances as destabilizing institutional features weakening effective government’ (Boyunsuz, 2016: 69). In order to be able to create a sui generis type of presidential system or an ‘a la Turca presidentialism that has been characterized as a form of government where the popular vote in elections will function as the sole mechanism of controlling the elected government’ (Kalaycıoğlu, 2015: 173), Erdoğan dares to make risky decisions as the example above shows.

As a result, following the snap election held on 1 November 2015, the AKP regained the parliamentary majority. During the period between these two elections, Erdoğan’s plan worked:

the AKP successfully presented itself as the only viable option in the midst of economic and political crises by building on its past record and at the same time skewing the playing field against the already weak and divided opposition (Esen and Gümüşcü, 2016: 1596).

As another example, in the aftermath of the coup attempt of 2016, Erdoğan steered the political and social actors to see the true face of the Fethullah Gülen Movement, his ultimate political enemy. On the other hand, he made some moves in order to empower his position as well. For instance, he announced that he wanted the armed forces and national intelligence agency brought under the control of the presidency.

It is obvious that there are both objective and subjective reasons for Erdoğan’s success as a political leader. ²³ Objective reasons, which in essence concern the historical context of Turkey, are beyond the scope of this study. Nonetheless, the fact that the AKP period witnessed economic stability and some positive trends such as a reduction in inflation should be mentioned. ²⁴ This was a success story in the eyes of most of the voters who had been consumed by the economic crises between the 1990s and the 2000/2001 period. ²⁵ As Musil (2015: 87) has underlined, ‘voters’ satisfaction with the incumbent’s economic policies as well as lack of centrifugal, ideological intraparty conflicts’ should be noted ‘as two crucial factors affecting the success of an incumbent party.’

Furthermore, the AKP managed to create not a new middle-class but a new middle-class mindset, which goes hand in hand with ultra-pragmatism. There are other reasons for Erdoğan’s success, such as the incompetence of the opposition parties and leaders, which could be considered. When it comes to subjective reasons for Erdoğan’s success, the ultimate reason is Erdoğan’s understanding of politics.

Lastly, Erdoğan’s recipe for success is the combination of these objective and subjective reasons. Erdoğan considers politics in terms of war. He champions a populist political discourse fueled by masculine codes and values that are compatible with Turkish political culture. Furthermore, Erdoğan presents an eclectically constructed pragmatist ideology which simultaneously refers to Islamism, nationalism and conservatism and he puts an emphasis on the priority of majoritarianism – through his fetish term national will – over pluralism. As Moudouros (2014: 184) has underlined:

this central problem of selective democracy within the AKP’s ideological way of functioning restrains democracy itself within a majoritarian framework whereby the winner at the ballot box also becomes the body through which the ‘universal’ or ‘national’ good is expressed. ²⁶

Conclusion

Throughout this paper, the nature of populism as a medium of mass mobilization has been explored taking Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a case study. Particular emphasis has been put on how Erdoğan conceives of the relationship between populism and politics. In the final analysis, Erdoğan’s style of leadership might best be regarded as a synthesis of Weberian charismatic leadership (Weber, 2009) and a tendency towards an authoritarian populism that ‘tends to eschew elaborated ideologies and concrete programs’ and ‘looks to traditional or authoritative symbols and institutions for at least some of their inspiration’ (Dix, 1985: 42-43). This synthesis, which is ‘dependent on leader or leader’s myth’ (Dix, 1985: 47), ²⁷ paves the path of what we can call Erdoğanism, which is quite problematic from the perspective of a plural, modern, representative democracy.

Erdoğanism as a form of majoritarianism presents a blend of competitive authoritarianism in which ‘formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining and exercizing political authority [but] incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent, however, that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy’ (Levitsky and Way, 2002: 52); an understanding of delegative democracy that ‘rests on the premise that whoever wins election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit, constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited term of office’ (O’Donnell, 1994: 59); an attachment to presidentialism that refers to ‘heavy reliance on the personal qualities of a political leader’ (Linz, 1990: 69) and a tendency towards hybrid regimes ‘combining democratic and authoritarian elements’, which, in essence, are ‘pseudodemocratic’ (Diamond, 2002: 23–24) in the sense that democracy is reduced to the ballot box. Erdoğanism is at the same time a political symptom of Erdoğan’s style of leadership and is based on a political creed that fetishizes Erdoğan and his will. One might contend that Erdoğanism as a form of vague majoritarianism is positioned in ‘a broad grey area between institutionalized liberal democracies and full (or closed) authoritarian regimes’ (Özbudun, 2015: 42). For that reason, Erdoğan’s leadership should be scrutinized in order to make sense of the particular features of that ‘grey area’ and Turkish politics during AKP rule. As Görener and Ucal (2011: 357) emphasized, ‘even in a country where the political culture is underpinned by dominant leadership, Erdoğan’s sway over the political process has reached a dramatic level rarely seen in modern Turkish political history.’

But, that being said, one should also be aware of the fact that during the AKP period in Turkey, all political crises gave an impetus to the rise of Erdoğanism. After each political crisis, the pro-Erdoğan wing found and took the opportunity to restore its strength. Erdoğan himself as a leader played a pivotal role in this process. He managed political crises through his understanding of politics and populist leadership. Ultimately, a lesson might be drawn from Erdoğan’s populist leadership which considers political crisis to be an opportunity to make critical adjustments: Erdoğan’s style of leadership has the capacity to strengthen itself through an understanding of populism as a medium of mass mobilization and hence is worth pondering.