Chapter 2. The short political history of Turkey and the AKP

The main focus in this chapter will be on identifying the historical heritage of Turkish politics by concentrating on the two main political parties in order to provide basic contextual information to the reader. But there is a further aim of taking political history into account. In accordance with understanding discourse as both a constitutive and a constituent element of social reality in a dialectic way (Wodak, 2001), looking at the institutional and societal background gives us some hints about the possible limiting or sustaining effects of political history on political actors and their discourses. Thus, one should look at the historical context in which the AKP positions itself according to changing social and political circumstances. When it comes to the interpretation of the history, AKP sticks to a particular historical narrative among others to weaken the opposition. The political history of the parties also reveals the constant conflicts between different ideologies which reflect policymaking preferences in Turkey. Hence, the emphasis will be on the main premises of these ideologies, their interpretation of the world and their evolution by examining the CHP (Republican People’s Party) which has dominated the parliamentary opposition and the AKP (The Justice and Development Party) which has dominated government as a single party since 2002. There are two main reasons for taking the history of the CHP into account, although the party’s discourse is not analyzed in this book. Firstly, the CHP’s history has shaped overall Turkish political history since it became the founder party of the Turkish Republic and ruled the country as a single party until 1950. Secondly, AKP discourses heavily rely on the criticism of the CHP, and so in order to evaluate the relevance of arguments and historical references later in the analysis, the reader needs to know more about this party and its historical evolution.