Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

Justice and Development Party
Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi
Abbreviation
  • AK Party (English)[1]
  • AK PARTİ[a] (Turkish)[5]
  • AKP (unofficial)[6]
LeaderRecep Tayyip Erdoğan
General SecretaryFatih Şahin
SpokespersonÖmer Çelik
Parliamentary leaderAbdullah Güler [tr]
Founders
Founded14 August 2001; 23 years ago (2001-08-14)
Split fromVirtue Party
HeadquartersSöğütözü Caddesi No 6
Çankaya, Ankara
Youth wingAK Youth
Membership (February 2024)Decrease 11,041,464[7]
Ideology
Political positionRight-wing[29]
National affiliationPeople's Alliance
European affiliationAlliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (2013–2018)
Colours  Orange
  Blue
  White
Grand
National Assembly
266 / 600
Metropolitan
municipalities
12 / 30
Provinces
12 / 51
District
municipalities
364 / 922
Belde Municipalities
180 / 388
Website
www.akparti.org.tr

The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Turkish pronunciation: [adaːˈlet ve kaɫkɯnˈma paɾtiˈsi], AK PARTİ), abbreviated officially as AK Party in English,[1] is a political party in Turkey self-describing as conservative-democratic.[30] It has been the ruling party of Turkey since 2002. Third-party sources often refer to the party as national conservative, social conservative, right-wing populist[16] and as espousing neo-Ottomanism.[31] The party is generally regarded as being right-wing[32] on the political spectrum, although some sources have described it as far-right since 2011.[33][34] It is one of the two major parties of contemporary Turkey along with the Republican People's Party (CHP).

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been chairman of the AK Party since the 2017 Party Congress.[35] The AK Party is the largest party in the Grand National Assembly, the Turkish national legislature, with 266 out of 600 seats, having won 35.6% of votes in the 2023 Turkish parliamentary election. It forms the People's Alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The current parliamentary leader of the AK Party is Abdullah Güler [tr].

Founded in 2001 by members of a number of parties such as FP, ANAP and DYP, the party has a strong base of support among people from the conservative tradition of Turkey,[not verified in body] though the party strongly denies it is Islamist.[36] The party positioned itself as pro-liberal market economy, supporting Turkish membership in the European Union.[37] Orange is the party's main colour. Other colours include white for the logo, blue for the flag, and orange-white-blue-red for the corporate design.[38]

The AK Party is the only party in Turkey with a significant presence in all provinces of Turkey.[39] Since the beginning of Turkey's multiparty democracy in 1946, AK Party is the only party to win seven consecutive parliamentary elections.[39][40] The AK Party has headed the national government since 2002 under Abdullah Gül (2002–2003), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (2003–2014), Ahmet Davutoğlu (2014–2016), Binali Yıldırım (2016–2018) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (2018–present). The AK Party's rule has been marked with increasing authoritarianism, expansionism, censorship and banning of other political parties and dissent.[41][42][43][44][45]

The party was an observer in the European People's Party between 2005 and 2013. After not being granted full membership in the EPP, the party became a member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) from 2013 to 2018.[46]

AK Party has dominated Turkish politics since 2002. It is the sixth largest political party in the world by membership and the biggest in the world outside India, China and the U.S.

  1. ^ a b "Official outlet". Twitter.
  2. ^ "AK PARTİ TÜZÜĞÜ" [AK PARTİ STATUTES] (PDF) (in Turkish). Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  3. ^ "Less than white?". The Economist. 18 September 2008. Retrieved 22 September 2008.
    "AK Parti mi, AKP mi? (AK Parti or AKP?)". Habertürk (in Turkish). 5 June 2009. Retrieved 10 August 2009.
  4. ^ Ebru Toktar and Ersin Bal. "Laiklik anlayışlarımız farklı" Archived 12 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine (in Turkish). Akşam, 7 May 2008.
  5. ^ "AK PARTİ" (in Turkish). yargitaycb.gov.tr. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  6. ^ Hüseyin Şengül. "AKP mi, AK Parti mi?" (in Turkish). bianet.org. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  7. ^ "Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi" (in Turkish). Court of Cassation. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  8. ^ a b "Erdoğan's Triumph". Financial Times. 24 July 2007. Archived from the original on 7 March 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2017. The AK Party is now a national conservative party — albeit rebalancing power away from the westernised urban elite and towards Turkey's traditional heartland of Anatolia — as well as the Muslim equivalent of Europe's Christian Democrats.
  9. ^ a b Abbas, Tahir (2016). Contemporary Turkey in Conflict. Edinburgh University Press.
  10. ^ a b Bayat, Asef (2013). Post-Islamism. Oxford University Press. p. 11.
  11. ^ [8][9][10]
  12. ^ a b "AKP yet to win over wary business elite". Financial Times. 8 July 2007. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022.
  13. ^ a b Cagaptay, Soner (2014). The Rise of Turkey. Potomac Books. p. 117.
  14. ^ a b Yavuz, M. Hakan (2009). Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey. Cambridge University Press. p. 105.
  15. ^ [12][13][14]
  16. ^ a b Gunes, Cengiz; Zeydanlioglu, Welat, eds. (2013). The Kurdish Question in Turkey. Routledge. p. 270.
    Konak, Nahide (2015). Waves of Social Movement Mobilizations in the Twenty-First Century: Challenges to the Neo-Liberal World Order and Democracy. Lexington Books. p. 64.
    Jones, Jeremy (2007). Negotiating Change: The New Politics of the Middle East. I.B. Tauris. p. 219.
  17. ^ [16]
  18. ^ a b Osman Rifat Ibrahim (23 May 2014). "AK Party and the great neo-Ottoman travesty". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
  19. ^ a b Yavuz, M. Hakan (1998). "Turkish identity and foreign policy in flux: The rise of Neo-Ottomanism". Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies. 7 (12): 19–41. doi:10.1080/10669929808720119.
  20. ^ a b Kardaş, Şaban (2010). "Turkey: Redrawing the Middle East Map or Building Sandcastles?". Middle East Policy. 17: 115–136. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4967.2010.00430.x.
  21. ^ a b c d Aditya, Prasanna (31 August 2020). "'Neo-Ottomanism' in Turkish foreign policy". Observer Research Foundation. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  22. ^ [18][19][20][21]
  23. ^ Baris Gulmez, Seckin (February 2013). "Rising euroscepticism in Turkish politics: The cases of the AK Party and the CHP". Acta Politica. 48 (3): 326–344. doi:10.1057/ap.2013.2. S2CID 189929924.
  24. ^ Gülmez, Seçkin Barış (April 2020). "Rethinking Euroscepticism in Turkey: Government, Opposition and Public Opinion". Ekonomi, Politika & Finans Araştırmaları Dergisi. 5 (1): 1–22. doi:10.30784/epfad.684764.
  25. ^ [23][24]
  26. ^ a b Çevik, Savaş; Batrancea, Larissa; Erdoğdu, M. Mustafa, eds. (19 November 2020). Behavioural Public Finance Individuals, Society, and the State. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p. 135. ISBN 9781351107365.
  27. ^ a b Erisen, Cengiz (2016). Political Psychology of Turkish Political Behavior. Routledge. p. 102.
  28. ^ a b McKeever, Vicky (15 January 2020). "Turkish soccer star Hakan Sukur is now an Uber driver in the US". CNBC. Retrieved 6 April 2023. After retiring from soccer Sukur went into politics, winning a seat in Turkey's parliament as a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's right-wing Justice and Development Party in 2011.
  29. ^ [26][27][28][21]
  30. ^ "Turkey: The New Model?". 25 April 2012.
  31. ^ [12][9][10][8][14][13][18][19][20][21]
  32. ^ [27][26][28][21]
  33. ^ Jongerden, Joost; Gunes, Cengiz; Day, Bahar Simsek (18 December 2021). The Commentaries – Volume 1, 2021. Transnational Press London. ISBN 978-1-80135-107-2.
  34. ^ Çınar, Alev (2011). "The Justice and Development Party: Turkey's Experience with Islam, Democracy, Liberalism, and Secularism". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 43 (3): 529–541. doi:10.1017/S0020743811000651. hdl:11693/38147. JSTOR 23017316. S2CID 155939308.
  35. ^ "Erdogan returns as ruling AK Party party chief after referendum win". Deutsche Welle. 21 May 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  36. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  37. ^ "New to Turkish politics? Here's a rough primer". Turkish Daily News. 22 July 2007. Archived from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 22 July 2008.
  38. ^ "Corporate identity". www.akparti.org.tr. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  39. ^ a b Cavatorta, Francesco (29 December 2020). Routledge Handbook on Political Parties in the Middle East and North Africa. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-29330-2.
  40. ^ "Vol. 17, No. 4, FALL 2015 of Insight Turkey on JSTOR". www.jstor.org.
  41. ^ Cook, Steven A. (8 April 2021). "How Erdogan Got His Groove Back". Foreign Policy.
  42. ^ "Democratic decay and uncertainty in Turkey". 25 March 2021.
  43. ^ Goodman, Peter S. (18 August 2018). "The West Hoped for Democracy in Turkey. Erdogan Had Other Ideas". The New York Times.
  44. ^ Ben-Meir, Dr Alon (24 October 2020). "Erdogan's Calamitous Authoritarianism".
  45. ^ Aytaç, Selim Erdem (2021). "Effectiveness of Incumbent's Strategic Communication during Economic Crisis under Electoral Authoritarianism: Evidence from Turkey". American Political Science Review. 115 (4): 1517–1523. doi:10.1017/S0003055421000587. ISSN 0003-0554.
  46. ^ "Conservative Eurosceptic alliance reaches out to far-right". Financial Times. 12 November 2018. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022.


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