Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 25:3 (2026) ► pp.331–357

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Fighting authoritarian populism with populism in polarised Turkey

ORCiD logo with link | University of Liverpool
ORCiD logo with link | Coventry University
ORCiD logo with link | Kadir Has University
Published online: 25 November 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.25152.way
Abstract
Globally, populism is on the rise. Studies demonstrate how populism is a ‘thin’ ideology that is articulated with ideologies ranging from authoritarianism to its challenges. Here, we examine how two politicians who, at similar times in their careers, represented themselves as inclusive and democratic, yet articulated different incarnations of populism. One of these (Turkish President Erdoğan) has since become an authoritarian populist and the other (Ekrem İmamoğlu), Erdoğan’s political opposition. Both İmamoğlu in 2019 and Erdoğan in 1994 were first elected as Istanbul’s mayor. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, we analyse their public utterances around the times of these mayoral victories. This close reading reveals how discursive strategies are used in Erdoğan’s utterances that articulate the seeds of authoritarian populism while İmamoğlu, 25 years later, uses populism to challenge these. This study offers insights into how populism can be employed to both articulate and challenge authoritarian populism.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Discursive approaches to authoritarian populism
    • 1.2Discursive strategies linked to (authoritarian) populism
  • 2.Populism, politics, Erdoğan and İmamoğlu
  • 3.Resistance to authoritarian populism
  • 4.Sample
  • 5.Approach to analysis
  • 6.Analysis
    • 6.1Erdoğan
      • 6.1.1Criterion two: Justify interventions for “the people” and “greatness” after degeneration
      • 6.1.2Criterion three: Conflates the people, constructs dangerous others to prioritise his ideology
      • 6.1.3Criterion four: Circumvents or captures democratic institutions
      • 6.1.4Criterion five: Charismatic leader, nepotism and impunity
    • 6.2İmamoğlu
      • 6.2.1Criterion two: Justify interventions for ‘the people’ and ‘greatness’ after degeneration
      • 6.2.2Criterion three: Conflates the people, constructs dangerous others to prioritise his ideology
      • 6.2.3Criterion four: Circumvents or captures democratic institutions
      • 6.2.4Criterion five: Charismatic leader, nepotism and impunity
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (76)
References
Akdoğan, Yalçın. 2018. Political Leadership and Erdoğan. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakshian, Aram. 2013. “Erdoğan, the Anti- Atatürk”. The National Interest 127(1): 56–64.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernstein, Basil. 1990. Class, Codes and Control: The Structuring of Pedagogical Discourse. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caldas-Coulthard, Carmen. 1994. “On Reporting Reporting: The Representation of Speech in Factual and Factional Narratives. In Advances in Written Text Analysis Caldas-Coulthard, M. (ed.), 295–309. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cannovan, Margaret. 1999. “Trust the People! Populism and the two Faces of Democracy”. Political Studies 471: 2–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cleary, Matthew and Aykut Öztürk. 2020. “When does Backsliding Lead to Breakdown? Uncertainty and Opposition Strategies in Democracies at Risk”. Perspectives on Politics 20(1): 205–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Çelik, Burçe, Marlene Radl, Marko Ribac, Fanni Toth, and Tjaša Turnšek. 2024. “The Structural and Temporal Curb of Populism: A cross-country Analysis of Authoritarian Populist Influences on Journalism.” Journalism Studies 25 (16): 1990–2010. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Cleen, Benjamin and Nico Carpentier. 2010. “Contesting the Populist Claim on ‘the People’ through Popular Culture: The 0110 Concerts versus the Vlaams Belang”. Social Semiotics 20(2): 175–196. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Cleen, Benjamin and Juan Casado. 2024. “Populism of the Privileged: On the Use of Underdog Identities by Comparatively Privileged Groups”. Political Studies 72(3): 1005–1025. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Cleen, Benjamin and Jason Glynos. 2021. “Beyond Populism Studies”. Journal of Language and Politics 20(1): 178–195. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeHanas, Daniel. 2023. “The Spirit of Populism: Sacred, Charismatic, Redemptive and Apocalyptic Dimensions”. Democratization 31(4): 831–851. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
D’Eramo, Marco. 2013. “Populism and the New Oligarchy”. New Left Review 821: 5–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erçetin, Tuğçe and Cemil Boyraz. 2023. “How to Struggle with Exclusionary Right-wing Populism: Evidence from Turkey”. Democratization 30 (1): 78–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Esen, Berk and Sebnem Gumuscu. 2019. “‘Killing Autocracy Softly: The 2019 Local Elections in Turkey”. South European Society and Politics 24(3): 317–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freedom House. 2022. “The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule”. Freedom in the World 2022 accessed on 25 October 2024, [URL]
Galasso, Vincenzo. 2024. “The Effects of Fighting Populism on the Populist Dynamic”. EconPol Forum 251.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gamboa, Laura. 2017. “Opposition at the Margins: Strategies Against the Erosion of Democracy in Colombia and Venezuela”. Comparative Politics 49(4): 457–477. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gervais, Bryan. 2013. Incivility in Mass Political Discourse: The Causes and Consequences of an Uncivil Public. Published PhD Dissertation. University of Maryland accessed on 26 July 2019, [URL]
Gulalp, Haldun. 2001. “Globalization and Political Islam: The Social Bases of Turkey’s Welfare Party”. International Journal of Middle East Studies 33(3):433–448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumrukcu, Tuvan and Orhan Coskun. 2019. “Turkey’s Election Board under Pressure to Explain Istanbul Vote Annulment”. Reuters, [URL]
Hall, Stuart. 1985. “Authoritarian Populism: A Reply”. New Left Review 1(151). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hawkins, Kirk. 2016. “Responding to Radical Populism: Chavismo in Venezuela”. Democratization 23(2): 242–262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Içduygu, Ahmet and Souad Osseiran. 2022. “Syrian Refugees in Istanbul and Gaziantep: Comparative Findings on Settlement, Livelihood and Support”. CHR. Mechelsen Institute accessed on 01 June 2025, [URL]
Jamison, Anne and Witold Henisz. 2024. “Competing Demand-side Explanations and Populism: Cross-national Variation in a Recursive Ideational System”. Democratization 32(3): 759–787. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jiménez, Maryhen. 2023. “Contesting Autocracy: Repression and Opposition Coordination in Venezuela”. Political Studies 71(1): 47–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kluknavská, Alena and Vlastimil Havlík. 2024. “Making or Faking Depolarization? The Antipopulist Parties’ Construction of the Populism/antipopulism Divide on Social Media in the Czech Republic”. Politische Vierteljahresschrift. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress Gunter. 1985. Linguistic Processes in Sociocultural Practice. Victoria: Deakin University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2013. “Policy, Policy Communication and Discursive Shifts: Analyzing EU Policy Discourses on Climate Change”. In Analyzing Genres in Political Communication Cap, P. and Okulska, U. (eds), 101–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michal. 2017. “Discursive Shifts in Ethno-Nationalist Politics: On Politicization and Mediatization of the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Poland”. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 16(1–2): 76–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Discursive Shifts and the Normalisation of Racism: Imaginaries of Immigration, Moral Panics and the Discourse of Contemporary Right-wing Populism”. Social Semiotics 30(4): 503–527. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2020a. “Normalization and the Discursive Construction of ‘New’ Norms and ‘New’ Normality: Discourse in the Paradoxes of Populism and Neoliberalism.” Social Semiotics 30(4): 431–448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał and Per Ledin. 2017. “Uncivility on the Web: Populism in/and the Borderline Discourses of Exclusion”. Journal of Language and Politics 16(4): 566–581. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał and Natalia Krzyżanowska. 2024. “Conceptual Flipsiding in/and Illiberal Imagination: Towards a Discourse-conceptual Analysis”. The Journal of Illiberalism Studies 4(2): 33–46. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał and Mats Ekström. 2022. “The Normalization of Far-right Populism and Nativist Authoritarianism: Discursive Practices in Media, Journalism and the Wider Public Sphere/s”. Discourse & Society 33(6): 719–729. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał and Hugo Ekström. 2025. “‘No Longer the Haven of Tolerance’? The Press and Discursive Shifts on Immigration in Sweden 2010–2022”. Social Semiotics 35(3): 472–494. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto. 2005. On Populist Reason. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCoy, Jennifer and Murat Sömer. 2021. “Overcoming Polarization”. Journal of Democracy 39(1): 6–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKernan, Bethan. 2019. “From Reformer to ‘New Sultan’: Erdoğan’s Populist Evolution.” The Guardian accessed 23 September 2019, [URL]
Merkel, Wolfgang and Anna Lührman. 2021. “Resilience of Democracies: Responses to Illiberal and Authoritarian Challenges”. Democratization 28(5): 869–884. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Merrin, William. 2019. “President Troll: Trump, 4Chan and Memetic Warfare”. In Trump’s Media War Happer, C., Hoskins, A. and Merrin, W. (eds), 201–226. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 2004. “The Populist Zeitgeist”. Government and Opposition 39(4): 541–563. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Europe’s Populist Surge”. Foreign Affairs 95(6): 25–30.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas, and Cristóbal Kaltwasser. 2017. Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart. 2019. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ong, Elvin. 2022. Opposing Power: Building Opposition Alliances in Electoral Autocracies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Patapan, Haig. 2019. “On Populists and Demagogues”. Canadian Journal of Political Science 521: 743–759. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pope, Hugh. 2012. “Erdoğan’s Decade”. The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, accessed 28 September 2024, [URL]
Reisigl, Martin and Ruth Wodak (eds). 2000. The Semiotics of Racism: Approaches in Critical Discourse Analysis. Vienna: Passagen Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robertson, Susan and Matias Nestore. 2022. “Education Cleavages, or Market Society and the Rise of Authoritarian Populism?” Globalization, Societies and Education 20(2): 110–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruzza, Carlo. 2009. “Populism and Euroscepticism: Towards Uncivil Society?” Policy and Society 28(1): 87–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scoones, Ian, Marc Edelman, Saturnino Borras Jr., Ruth Hall, Wendy Wolford, and Ben White. 2017. “Emancipatory Rural Politics: Confronting Authoritarian Populism”. The Journal of Peasant Studies 45(1): 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. “Emancipatory Rural Politics: Confronting Authoritarian Populism”. In Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World Scoones, I., Edelman, M., Borras, S., Forero, L. D., Ruth Hall, Wendy Wolford and White, B. (eds), 1–20. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Serafis, Dimitrios, E. Dimitrios Kitis and Stavros Assimakopoulos. 2022. “Sailing to Ithaka: The Transmutation of Greek Left-populism in Discourses about the European Union”. Journal of Language and Politics 21(2): 344–369. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shroufia, Omran and Benjamin De Cleen. 2024. “Far-right Intellectual Discourse about Populism: The Case of the German Institut für Staatspolitik”. Journal of Political Ideologies 29(2): 330–351. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sobieraj, Sarah and Jeffrey Berry. 2011. “From Incivility to Outrage: Political Discourse in Blogs, Talk Radio, and Cable News.” Political Communication 28(1): 19–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stavrakakis, Yannis. 2017. “How Did ‘Populism’ Become a Pejorative Concept? And Why is This Important Today? A Genealogy of Double Hermeneutics”. Populismus Working Papers No. 6.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Şener, Gülüm, Hakan Yücel and Umur Yedikardeş. 2022. “Towards a New Left-populist Rhetoric in Turkey: Discourse Analysis of İmamoğlu’s Campaign”. In Hate Speech and Polarisation in Participatory Society Perez-Escolar, M., Noguera-Vivo, J. M. (eds), 130–144. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tuğal, Cihan. 2002. “Islamism in Turkey: Beyond Instrument and Meaning”. Economy and Society 31(1): 85–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun. 1991. Racism and the Press. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo. 1995. “Representing Social Action”. Discourse and Society 6(1): 81–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1996. “The Representation of Social Actors”. In Texts and Practices — Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis Caldas-Coulthard, C. and Coulthard, M. (eds), 32–70. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo and Ruth Wodak. 1999. “Legitimising Immigration: A Discourse Historical Approach”. Discourse Studies 1(1): 83–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Way, Lyndon. 2018. Popular Music and Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies: Ideology, Control and Resistance in Turkey since 2002. London: Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021a. “Populism in Musical Mash Ups: Recontextualising Brexit”. Social Semiotics 31(3): 489–506. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2023. “Anti-populist Populism: Musical Challenges to Trump’s America and Erdoğan’s Turkey”. Popular Music 41(3): 387–404. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Way, Lyndon and Irem Inceoglu. 2022. “The ‘Incivil’ President: Turkey’s Erdoğan and His Use of Language”. Journal of Language and Politics 21(6): 801–826. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Way, Lyndon, Gokcen Karanfil and Aykut Erçifici. 2018. “‘See No Evil, Read No Evil’: The Failing Role of Turkish Newspapers in Coverage of Turkey’s 2016 coup Attempt”. Critical Discourse Studies 15(5): 481–499. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Way, Lyndon and Dimitrios Serafis. 2023. “Scroll Culture and Authoritarian Populism: How Turkish and Greek Online News Aggravate ‘Refugee Crisis’ Tensions”. Critical Discourse Studies 20(6): 643–664. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weyland, Kurt. 2025. “Opposition to Populist Backsliding: Conditions, Limitations and Opportunities”. Democratization 32(1): 1–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 1988. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 1996. “The Genesis of Racist Discourse in Austria since 1989.” In Texts and Practices Caldas-Coulthard, C. and Coulthard, M. (eds), 107–128. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. “The Discourse-historical Approach”. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis Wodak, R. & Meyer, M. (eds), 63–93. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
World Vision. 2024. “Syrian Refugee Crisis: Facts, FAQs, and How to Help”, World Vision accessed 26 September 2024, [URL]
Zappettini, Franco. 2021. “The Tabloidization of the Brexit Campaign: Power to the (British) People?” Journal of Language and Politics 20(2): 277–303. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue