For the People, against the Elites: Left versus Right-Wing Populism in Greece

and Turkey

Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Bilkent University

Abstract

While the rise of populism has been a global trend in recent years, it has been prevalent

in Greece and Turkey for longer, leaving a strong imprint on the politics of both

countries. Left-wing populism has become one of the constitutive elements of the Greek

political party system since the collapse of the 1967-1974 military regime. The 2009

outbreak of the Greek economic crisis set the stage for the radicalization of Greek

politics through the rise of extremist far-right and far-left populist parties that professed

populist agenda of different hues. Such populists accused old-party personnel of being

members of a “treacherous elite” that sacrificed Greek national interests against foreign

powers. The 2011 “indignados” movement is key for the better understanding of the

social dynamics that facilitated the rise of the unusual SYRIZA-ANEL coalition

government. Debates on Greek constitutional reform also highlighted the relevance of

populism, especially as the SYRIZA-ANEL government sought topics to resonate with

its disenchanted voters. On the other hand, a right-wing populist rhetoric has been one

of the key instruments for the rise of Turkish political Islam and the establishment of

the AKP hegemony in Turkey. Establishing a Kulturkampf-based narrative about the

“secularist, ‘white-Turk’ elites” versus the “conservative, ‘black-Turk’ people” was of

great political significance. The constitutional reform process proved again crucial for

manifesting the relevance of populism in Turkish political discourse. This article aims

to explore the circumstances under which left- and right-wing populism have emerged

into a dominant feature of Greek and Turkish politics. It also aims to explore the
 2
 
decreasing relevance of the established left-right political divide in party politics and

suggests alternative classifications.

Keywords populism, Greece, Turkey, elite, constitution, AKP, SYRIZA, indignados,

Introduction

Populism was on the rise in both Greece and Turkey of the 2010s. The Greek economic

crisis set the stage for the radicalization of Greek politics through the upsurge of

populist parties. As left-wing populism had been familiar to Greek party politics since

the fall of the military regime in 1974, its resurgence proved relatively easy. Populists

accused old-party personnel of being members of a “treacherous elite” that sacrificed

Greek national interests to foreign powers. The 2011 “indignados” movement is key

for the better understanding of the social dynamics that confirmed the prevalence of

populism across the Greek political spectrum, brought together far-left and far-right

movements and facilitated the rise of the unusual and seemingly incompatible

Synaspismós Rizospastikís Aristerás (Coalition of the Radical Left, or SYRIZA) and

the right-wing Anexartitoi Ellines (Independent Greeks, or ANEL) coalition

government. Debates on Greek constitutional reform also highlighted the relevance of

populism, especially as the SYRIZA-ANEL government was forced to follow the

economic policy it had long chastised to come to power and sought ways to appease its

disenchanted voter base. On the other side of the Aegean, a right-wing populist rhetoric

has been one of the key instruments for the establishment of the Adalet ve Kalkınma

Partisi (Justice and Development Party, or AKP) hegemony in Turkey since its rise to

power in 2002. Establishing a Kulturkampf-based narrative about the “secularist,

‘white-Turk’ elites” vs. the “conservative, ‘black-Turk’ people” proved to be crucial

for the establishment of AKP hegemony. The secularist elites that governed republican

 
 3
 
Turkey and were represented by the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican People’s

Party, or CHP) had no legitimacy with the people, who were genuinely represented by

the AKP and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkey’s constitutional reform and the

introduction of a strong presidential system following the April 2017 constitutional

referendum reconfirmed the relevance of right-wing populism in Turkish political

discourse and the significance of constitutional reform as an instrument for the party’s

political hegemony.

This study aims to explore the circumstances under which left- and right-wing

populism have emerged into a dominant feature of Greek and Turkish politics in the

2010s. While the varieties of Greek and Turkish populism have considerably diverged,

there nevertheless are strong similarities that render a comparison of the two both

meaningful and important. This study argues that populism has risen to become such

an influential feature of Greek and Turkish politics because of the historic conditions

of modernization in both countries. The emergence of deep social divides along

religious, ideological, or cultural lines have made both countries susceptible to the

influence of populist rhetoric. Constitutional politics has become one of the main fields

where populists have chosen to stage their political confrontation with their opponents.

For the purpose of this article, populism is understood as a superficial political ideology

that can be combined with left- or right-wing preferences on issues, such as

international relations, economic freedom, and individual autonomy.1 This means that

depending on the political, economic, and social conditions intrinsic to each country,

left- or right-wing varieties of populism would be likely to thrive and dominate the

1
Jan-Werner Muller, What Is Populism? (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 9-11;

Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism : a very short introduction, Very short

introductions, (Oxford ; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 5-6.

 
 4
 
public sphere. The prevalence of ideological polarization along the left-right axis has

often occluded analysts from recognizing crucial similarities between left- and right-

wing populist movements. This interpretation argues that studying the Greek and

Turkish cases provides valuable insights about the similarities between left- and right-

wing populist movements. In particular, the alliance between the left-wing, populist

SYRIZA coalition and the far-right, populist ANEL poses an interesting study case.

The smooth cooperation of these two seemingly unlikely partners points to the fact that

affinities between left- and right-wing populism are stronger than originally thought

and that the relevance of the established left-right political divide is problematic.

Moreover, studying the Greek case raises doubts concerning the view that left-wing

populism is an essentially positive force.2 The alliance between SYRIZA and ANEL

further provides a valuable analytical tool for the evaluation of left- and right-wing

populism in Western democracies. Studying the Turkish case also proves very useful

in terms of gaining a better understanding of the rise of populist movements in states

where democratic backsliding has been observed and hybrid regimes have succeeded

procedural democracies.

Greece and the Prevalence of Left-wing Populism

2
Ernesto Laclau, On populist reason (London & New York: Verso, 2005), 157-71; Chantal Mouffe,

"The ‘end of politics’ and the challenge of right-wing populism," in Populism and the Mirror of

Democracy, ed. Francisco Panizza (London & New York: Verson, 2005), 72-98. The intolerance of some

left-wing populist movements in Latin America and beyond to pluralism is indicative in that respect.

 
 5
 
Greek populism has thrived on the deep ideological and political divisions that shaped

Greek politics throughout the twentieth century.3 Already in 1915, a major political

confrontation between the two heads of the Greek executive King Constantine I and

Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, resulted in the collapse of the Greek constitution

and the temporary division of the Greek state under two different governments.4 This

triggered what is known as the “National Schism, (Ethnikos Dichasmos)” which was a

political rift within the Greek society between Venizelos’s supporters (Venizelists) and

opponents (Antivenizelists) and which survived until the end of the Second World War.

Soon thereafter, the 1946-1949 Greek Civil War erupted between pro-Western

government forces and left-wing insurgents who sought to establish a Communist

regime in Greece, which ended with a victory of the former but not without first

ravaging the country. Greece’s democracy subsequently suffered from major

deficiencies throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

The right-wing military coup of April 21, 1967, proved a watershed event in

Greek history, and resulted in the suspension of the country’s constitution and seven

years of authoritarian rule. Under the leadership of Georgios Papadopoulos (1967-

1973) and Dimitrios Ioannidis (1973-1974), the military regime employed populist

rhetoric in its effort to justify its decision not to return to the barracks following the

3
On the deeper roots of Greece’s social divisions, see Nikiforos Diamandouros, Cultural Dualism and

Political Change in Post-authoritarian Greece, Instituto Juan March de Estudios e Investigaciones

(Madrid, 1994)..
4
John S. Koliopoulos and Thanos M. Veremis, Modern Greece: A history since 1821 (Chichester: Wiley-

Blackwell, 2010), 77-86. While the dispute reflected ongoing transformations in Greek politics and

society, it referred to Greece’s orientation during the First World War, namely whether it should join the

Entente or remain neutral.

 
 6
 
removal of the “inept civilian government” but to rule the country for an indefinite

period of time. The colonels contended that corrupt political and economic elites had

brought Greece to the brink of disaster, so that military intervention had been the only

way to defend the “people’s interests.” Thus, the military identified itself with the

people, and sought to legitimize its continued control of the country. It was only on July

24, 1974, at the onset of the Greek-instigated military coup in Cyprus and the

subsequent Turkish invasion of the island, that the junta collapsed.

Following the Cyprus fiasco, Greece returned to civilian rule with the creation

of a national unity government led by Konstantinos Karamanlis came to power. While

Karamanlis and his center-right New Democracy party comfortably won the November

17, 1974 parliamentary elections that ensued and his party ruled Greece for the

remainder of the decade, they would soon be challenged from the left by the Panhellenic

Socialist Movement (PASOK), which had been founded in September 1974 by Andreas

Papandreou.5 Papandreou skillfully employed populism as well as left-wing rhetoric in

his rise to a hegemonic position in Greek politics.6 Papandreou’s political strategy bore

5
Takis S. Pappas, "Populist democracies: Post-authoritarian Greece and post-communist Hungary,"

Government and Opposition 49, no. 01 (2014): 9-10; Takis S. Pappas, Populism and crisis politics in

Greece (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 21-26. Papandreou was the son of Prime

Minister George Papandreou, who had been leader of the Center Union in the 1960s. Although he entered

Greek politics as a scion in the early 1960s, in the wake of the collapse of the military regime, he avoided

re-joining the centrist party founded by his father. Instead he established PASOK and moved it to the

left, capitalizing on the resentment left from the oppression of Greece’s left and center-left during the

post-Second World War era.

case of SYRIZA," Journal of Political Ideologies 19, no. 2 (2014/05/04 2014): 124-26,

https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2014.909266, https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2014.909266.

 
 7
 
fruit, as PASOK rose from the periphery to become the dominant political party in

Greece in the 1980s, and he would leave a heavy imprint on Greek politics and society.

Capitalizing on growing anti-American sentiments and the ostracization of left-wing

citizens from state positions that had occurred between 1949 and 1974, Papandreou

engaged in an harsh critique of the Greek establishment, of which he was in fact a

prominent member. He argued that center-right governments did not represent the

genuine interests of the Greek people, but only those of the “corrupt elites.” Hence,

democracy had not really been restored with the return of civilian rule in Papandreou’s

view.7

Thus, it was not until PASOK’s landslide electoral victory on October 18, 1981

that “true democracy” was reestablished in Greece. Papandreou showed himself keen

to maintain such populist rhetoric while in power—especially given the fact that his

government failed to deliver most of the radical promises he had made on his way to

power. Moreover, he implied that while PASOK was the leading party in the

government, it still did not have real power because of the continued influence of Greek

elites and Karamanlis, who had relinquished the office of prime minister to be elected

president of the Hellenic Republic in May 1980. While the cohabitation of Papandreou

and Karamanlis proved more harmonious than one might have expected, it did not last.

A crisis occurred when, contrary to expectations, Papandreou announced on March 9,

1985 that PASOK would not support the reelection of Karamanlis. The Prime Minister

contended that the existence of a strong president curbed the will of the people, and

accordingly announced plans for a far-reaching constitutional amendment that would

7
Following the collapse of the military regime, the Karamanlis government organized free parliamentary

elections on November 17, 1974 and a referendum on the future of Greek monarchy on December 8,

1974. It also introduced a new republican constitution, which was promulgated on June 11, 1975.

 
 8
 
strip the presidency of much of the powers that balanced those of the prime minister.

Winning the ensuing June 1985 parliamentary elections confirmed popular support for

Papandreou and led to the successful amending of the constitution. Papandreou would

serve as prime minister until 1989, and again lead Greece between 1993 and 1996 when

ill health led to his resignation.

Under Andreas Papandreou’s successors, Konstantinos Simitis (1996-2004)

and George Papandreou (2009-2011), PASOK attempted at times to distance itself from

its founding populist discourse. Nonetheless, this change by no means meant that the

appeal of populism in Greek politics was in decline. In fact, other public figures on the

right adopted populist tactics. A prime example of this switch was Archbishop

Christodoulos who vehemently opposed the removal of reference to religious affiliation

on Greek identity cards, which was a secularization measure introduced by the Simitis

administration.8 New Democracy leader and Prime Minister (2004-2009) Kostas

Karamanlis, too, often employed populist tactics. To wit, Karamanlis successfully

presented Simitis’s government as representative of the country’s economic elites and

his center-right party as the true representative of people’s interests.

The coming of the severe Greek economic crisis in fall 20099 at the outset of

the global financial turmoil established suitable conditions for the resurgence of

8
Yannis Stavrakakis, "Antinomies of formalism: Laclau's theory of populism and the lessons from

religious populism in Greece," Journal of Political Ideologies 9, no. 3 (2004): 258-62. This was one of

the fiercest political confrontations of the early 2000s, which was won by the Simitis administration.
9
George Pagoulatos and Christos Triantopoulos, "The return of the Greek patient: Greece and the 2008

global financial crisis," South European Society and Politics 14, no. 1 (2009): 35-37.

 
 9
 
populism,10 as the economic and social turmoil delegitimized the old political parties.11

While new populist parties emerged on the far left and right margins of the Greek

political spectrum, SYRIZA, in particular, capitalized on the left-wing populist canon

of Greek politics to rise meteorically from the periphery of Greek politics and to come

to power.12 In many respects, SYRIZA followed in the footsteps of early PASOK.

Alexis Tsipras, the party leader, aspired to emulate Andreas Papandreou and his radical

populism of the 1970s in his rhetoric, style, and tactics. He squarely blamed the

economic crisis on the European Union and international markets, and thus reversed

the actual causal direction of developments related to the Greece’s predicament. In

Tsipras’s view it was not the economic crisis that led to the bailout agreements and the

concomitant austerity measures, but the opposite was true—the country’s hardships had

been brought about by austerity policies imposed by outside forces. Hence the solution

for the economic crisis was simple. Tsipras and SYRIZA presented the abolition of the

memorandum agreements as the way to begin to bring an end to Greek economic and

social woes and ultimately embark on the country’s economic recovery.

10
Pappas, Populism and crisis politics in Greece, 71-77.
11
Ioannis N Grigoriadis, "Greek tragedy," World Policy Journal 28, no. 2 (2011): 105-08; Sofia

Vasilopoulou and Daphne Halikiopoulou, "Greek Politics: Economic Crisis or Crisis of Democracy?,"

World Affairs 178, no. 3 (2015): 14-15, www.jstor.org/stable/24888110.

Thought 4, no. 3 (2014/07/03 2014): 354-60, https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2014.931022,

https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2014.931022; Myrto Tsakatika, "SYRIZA’s Electoral Rise in

Greece: Protest, Trust and the Art of Political Manipulation," South European Society and Politics 21,

no. 4 (2016/10/01 2016): 522-25, https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2016.1239671,

https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2016.1239671; Stavrakakis and Katsambekis, "Left-wing populism

in the European periphery: the case of SYRIZA," 126-33.

 
 10
 

The Greek Indignados and the SYRIZA-ANEL government

Inspired by the indignados (Spanish “outraged”) movement, which protested against

austerity measures imposed by the Spanish government on May 15, 2011, the Greek

indignados started gathering ten days later at Syntagma Square, Athens’s central public

space, declaring their outrage against the crisis and the political elites they blamed for

bringing the country to its knees. The crowd was very diverse; soon the square was

divided into an “upper square sector” where far-right-wing demonstrators would gather

and a “lower square sector,” preferred by their far-left counterparts.

Despite apparent differences, it soon became clear that there were common

threads among the protestors including a sense of the victimization of Greece and its

people, a belief in the country’s exceptionalism, contempt for parliamentary

democracy, and a miserabilistic view of the country as well as its prospects, which

brought both groups together. In their view, Greece was unique in its history and

institutions and was not responsible for its predicament; in fact, it was a victim of

globalization and capital markets.13 Their view of the PASOK government remained

extremely negative, despite its determined effort to prevent a default.14 Their remedy

was clear: Greece had to abandon austerity programs; cut off its relations with the troika

of its creditors, i.e., the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

and the European Central Bank (ECB); and lead a global struggle against such harsh

policies. These views fit very well their perception of Greece as being a pioneer in the

13
Sofia Vasilopoulou, Daphne Halikiopoulou, and Theofanis Exadaktylos, "Greece in Crisis: Austerity,

Populism and the Politics of Blame," Journal of Common Market Studies 52, no. 2 (2014): 388-90.
14
George Pagoulatos, "Desperately hanging on: A euro-crisis view from Greece," European Council

on Foreign Relations (2012): 1-4.

 
 11
 
world-wide struggle against globalization and the domination of capitalism. Indeed,

Greece represented a veritable Arcadia of anti-capitalist resistance. Foreign

intellectuals and activists lent credibility to that perception, orientalizing and

exoticizing Greece in ways reminiscent of eighteenth and nineteenth century

Philhellenism. This pessimistic and cynical understanding of the world and politics, in

fact, paved the way for the ascendance of clearly antiliberal and antidemocratic political

movements.15

In the elections of January 25, 2015, SYRIZA gained the plurality of votes but

not enough seats to form a single-party government. Its decision to choose neither a

liberal nor center-left party, such as the River, (Potami), or the Change Movement

(Kinima Allagis) (KINAL), but ANEL as its government partner spoke volumes about

the emerging reconfiguration of Greek politics.16 While the attempt of the SYRIZA-

ANEL coalition to navigate between its promises and hard realities failed miserably

and came at a huge cost to the Greek economy in summer 2015,17 its capitulation on

15
Panayis Panagiotopoulos and Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos, "Introduction: Framing Greek Exoticism.

History and the Current Crisis," in Political and Cultural Aspects of Greek Exoticism, ed. Panayis

Panagiotopoulos and Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019), 1-8.

SYRIZA-ANEL coalition in Greece," Democratization 23, no. 6 (2016/09/18 2016): 1080-84,

https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2016.1154842, https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2016.1154842.
17
On the cost of the SYRIZA-ANEL government negotiation with the troika, see Klaus Regling, "First

half of 2015 cost Greece 86-200 bln euros," Kathimerini (English Edition) (Athens), 19/08/2018 2018,

http://www.ekathimerini.com/231837/article/ekathimerini/business/regling-in-kathimerini-first-half-of-

2015-cost-greece-86-200-bln-euros; Viktoria Dendrinou and Eleni Varvitsioti, The Last Bluff: How

Greece came face-to-face with financial catastrophe & the secret plan for its euro exit (Athens:

 
 12
 
matters of economic policy did not mean the end of populist tactics. Tsipras emerged

as a charismatic leader.18 Polarizing Greek public opinion on domestic policy issues,

beyond the economic austerity program became a key tactic of the SYRIZA-ANEL

government that wished to limit defections from its increasingly disillusioned base.

Like in the 1980s, the question of the Republic’s constitution served as an opportunity

to promote a populist agenda. Introducing a discussion of constitutional “reforms”

aimed at weakening check-and-balance mechanisms as well as the integrity of crucial

institutions in the name of “direct democracy” further had the objective of perpetuating

the divisions of Greek society along the lines that suited best the interests of the

SYRIZA-ANEL government. Weakening the offsetting role of the judiciary and the

legislative against the executive was one of the main features of the proposed

amendments. In other words, the populists promoted a stronger majoritarian view of

democracy as remedy for the ills of the Greek polity. The popularization of referenda

as means to resolve domestic and foreign policy issues and the discussion of the

constitutional amendment in specially designated popular bodies betrayed mistrust of

representative democracy.19 Coalition members fueled dissatisfaction concerning the

current state of affairs as well as the “old institutions” and channeled this discontent

toward new institutional arrangements. The collapse of the SYRIZA-ANEL

Papadopoulos, 2019).. Regling has been the Chief Executive Officer of the European Financial Stability

Facility (EFSF) and Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
18
Cas Mudde, SYRIZA: The Failure of the Populist Promise (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Pivot,

2016), 7-24; Yannis Stavrakakis, "Populism in power: Syriza's challenge to Europe," Juncture 21, no. 4

(2015): 277-78, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2050-5876.2015.00817.x,

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2050-5876.2015.00817.x.
19
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Democratic Transition and the Rise of Populist Majoritarianism:

Constitutional Reform in Greece and Turkey (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018), 48-49.

 
 13
 
government in May 2019 and its resounding defeat in the early parliamentary elections

of July 7, 2019 prevented the realization of the constitutional reform plans of the

coalition; yet, they still maintain their relevance as a populist blueprint for the

reconfiguration of Greek politics.

Turkey and the Prevalence of Right-wing Populism

Turkey’s political history in the twentieth century has also proved suitable for the

nurturing of populist movements. This trend is not only due to the conditions that led

to the outbreak of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, the demise of the Ottoman Empire,

the emergence of the Republic of Turkey and the Ataturk modernization program,20 but

it can also be linked to the framing of the contentious issue in Kulturkampf terms.21

Indeed, modern Turkish debates bear a strong resemblance to the famous conflict of the

late nineteenth century between the state and Catholic Church in imperial Prussia not

to mention the confrontations between Kemalism and Islam in early republican Turkey.

What differs are the terms of the confrontation. While secularists held the upper hand

throughout the history of republican Turkey until 2002, it was the Islamists who

eventually gained the advantage with the subsequent consolidation of the AKP power.

This development provided a fertile ground for the breeding of populism, as speaking

in the name of the people is a key claim of Kulturkampf activists.22

20
Erik Jan Zürcher, Turkey : A modern history, New ed. (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), 93-183.
21
Ioannis N Grigoriadis and Theocharis N Grigoriadis, "The political economy of Kulturkampf:

evidence from imperial Prussia and republican Turkey," Constitutional Political Economy (2018): 349-

54.
22
Kulturkampf was about restoring the true culture of the people, however this was defined; removing

any vestiges of cultures that had allegedly adulterated the original features of cultural identity was

 
 14
 
For a variety of demographic, political and social reasons, Turkish politics has

gravitated towards the right. While the military participated in a series of coups in the

twentieth century, its leaders ultimately abstained from installing itself in long-lasting

governments. Nevertheless, Turkish praetorians made sure to suppress left-wing

political movements and tilt the balance of the political spectrum towards the right so

that the Turkish left remained weak, both institutionally and politically. Moreover, the

introduction of a “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis” (Türk-İslam Sentezi-TİS) in the 1970s

and its emergence as de facto official ideology of the Republic following the 1980

military coup also meant that Communism, Islamism, and Kurdish nationalism would

be identified as key threats to the integrity of Turkey.

The failure of a successful leftist political movement to institutionalize itself has

compounded the weakness of the Turkish left. The role of the Republican People’s

Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or CHP) in this has been crucial. The CHP, which was

the party of Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, attempted to reform itself

from the onset of multiparty politics and eventually establish itself in the center-left

(ortanın solu) of the political spectrum. Nevertheless, the party remained too attached

to Turkey’s state elite, and failed to represent the interests of Turkey’s labor class. As

urbanization and industrialization were irreversibly transforming Turkish society and

led to the rise of a Turkish urban poor in the country’s big cities, these social groups

did not join the ranks of left-wing political movements. Instead, a Turkish brand of

political Islam captured this political momentum , as identity politics along the Islamist-

secularist fault line became one of the defining characteristics of Turkish politics. With

considered to be essential. On this, also see Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, "Kulturkampf in Turkey: The

constitutional referendum of 12 September 2010," South European Society and Politics 17, no. 1

(2012): 6-7.

 
 15
 
the rise of Turkish political Islam since the late 1960s, and notably the September 12,

1980 military coup, which dealt a heavy blow to left-wing political organizations, the

emergence of a successful, left-wing, populist movement became increasingly difficult

in Turkey.

The vacuum of the populist arena was eventually filled and dominated by

Islamist political parties and leaders. The first of these was the Welfare (Refah) Party

under the leadership of Necmetttin Erbakan. This was followed by the rise of the Justice

and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP) and its charismatic

leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Under the leadership of these two parties, Turkish

political Islam created its own populist narrative. Republican elites had usurped popular

sovereignty for decades, and then Turkish-brand of political Islam considered it its duty

to reclaim the legacy of the Ottoman Empire,23 represent the interests of the oppressed

masses, and introduce true democracy to Turkey. Islamist leaders did not see the West

as a source of emulation or a role model, but instead as one of the forces that was

facilitating the oppression of the Turkish people. While Erbakan became republican

Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister in June 1996, he could not challenge the dominant

role of secularist elites. and succumbed to the “postmodern coup” of February 28, 1997.

Thus, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who engaged in a long, populist political

campaign targeting Turkey’s secularist elites, would carry the populist torch.24 The

AKP leader exploited the division of the Turkish society along the lines of the Kemalist

23
Umut Uzer, "Glorification of the Past as a Political Tool: Ottoman history in contemporary Turkish

politics," The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 9, no. 4 (2018/10/02 2018): 354-56,

https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2018.1539063, https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2018.1539063.
24
Şakir Dinçşahin, "A Symptomatic Analysis of the Justice and Development Party's Populism in

Turkey, 2007–2010," Government and Opposition 47, no. 4 (2012): 626-39.

 
 16
 
secularist elite and the Muslim conservative majority. He claimed to represent society’s

underdogs, or the “Black Turks” (Siyah Türkler), who had always been discriminated

against and marginalized by the “White Turks” (Beyaz Türkler), who constituted the

members of the republican elite. In the event, Erdoğan’s populist message proved very

powerful.25 His party rose to control the government in November 2002, and Erdoğan

has remained the dominant figure of Turkish politics ever since. His claim was that his

party brought true democracy to the country, because it represented the original values

and the true interests of the Turkish people. In a manner typical of populist leaders who

have attained power, Erdoğan insists that he represents Turkey’s underdogs almost

twenty years after his rise to power. To do so he has had to argue that he has never

really had full power, although he was the leader of the government, because someone

always stood in his way. Thus, over time he has blamed the military and bureaucratic

elites, the Gülen movement, the United States or the West in general for blocking his

objectives, and presented them as the enemies who have obstructed his exercise of full

power. It is, therefore, a democratic duty for patriotic Turkish citizens to stand by the

AKP government in its various struggles against both domestic and foreign adversaries.

In the first years of AKP rule, it was the Turkish military and civil bureaucracy

whom Erdoğan accused of limiting the sovereign rights of the Turkish people through

their tutelary position within the Turkish state. As the military’s political role has

diminished from 2006 onwards following the Ergenekon, Balyoz and Andıç

investigations and the AKP’s survival in the 2008 closure case brought before the

Constitutional Court, new enemies have emerged in the third and fourth term of the

AKP administration. Following the breakdown of relations with his erstwhile ally, the

25
On this, see Toygar Sinan Baykan, The Justice and Development Party in Turkey: Populism,

personalism, organization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 61-105..

 
 17
 
Fethullah Gülen movement, and the 2013 Gezi demonstrations, which shook the self-

confidence of the Turkish government, AKP officials have identified the Gülen

movement, civil society organizations and foreign powers as enemies of the Turkish

people. The all-out war against the Gülenists, who were eventually considered a

terrorist organization under the name of Fethullahist Terrorist Organization

(Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü, or FETÖ), has led to thousands of arrests as well as purges

of the bureaucracy and military. The failed coup of July 15, 2016, the organization of

which authorities attribute to the Gülenists, has led to a sharp increase of purges in all

state institutions, as the subsequent declaration of a state of emergency suspended

constitutional guarantees for human rights and the rule of law throughout the Republic

of Turkey. Moreover, AKP officials presented the unwillingness of the international

community fully to endorse the official narrative about the abortive takeover and its

aftermath as evidence for foreign complicity with the coup plotters. Accordingly the

government promoted the line that domestic and international forces conspired to usurp

sovereignty from the hands of the Turkish people. Only due to the steadfast resistance

of the people and the resolute leadership of the AKP did their plans fail.26

Beyond the official accounts concerning enemies near and far, another key

element for the promotion of President Erdoğan’s populist agenda relates to the issue

of constitutional reform. So-called “experts” have thus identified the need for a drastic

amendment of the Turkish constitution, which they consider to be a vestige of

Turkey’s authoritarian past. While the debate on this question in the early years of the

26
The 2013 Gezi demonstrations proved a critical juncture in that respect, as they disproved the claim

that the AKP could claim a monopoly on the people and social mobilization. On this, see Hayriye Özen,

"An unfinished grassroots populism: The Gezi Park protests in Turkey and their aftermath," South

European Society and Politics 20, no. 4 (2015): 537-44..

 
 18
 
AKP administration focused on introducing a new, liberal democratic constitution, it

later shifted in a different direction following the AKP’s continuation in power for a

third term. The new plan was to create a constitution that would pave the way for the

Republic’s transition from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The idea was to

weaken or lift check-and-balance mechanisms in favor of allowing for a stronger

executive.27 Crafters of the new fundamental law envisioned the abolition of the

office of the prime minister with the creation of the new order. Buoyed by the

favorable political environment in the aftermath of the abortive 2016 coup, Erdoğan

exploited the opportunity to present his desired constitutional “reform” to the people

in the form of a referendum. The vote, which was held on April 16, 2017, produced a

thin majority in favor of the new constitution and confirmed Erdoğan’s hegemonic

position. The consolidation of majoritarian features as part of the Turkish political

system gave an indispensable role to the president.28 In addition, this decisive, swift

turn toward majoritarianism led to further discussions about the present and future of

Turkey’s democratic consolidation process.29

27
Orçun Selçuk, "Strong presidents and weak institutions: populism in Turkey, Venezuela and

Ecuador," Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16, no. 4 (2016): 575-78.
28
Grigoriadis, Democratic Transition and the Rise of Populist Majoritarianism: Constitutional Reform

in Greece and Turkey, 63-67.

between Democratisation and Majoritarianism in Turkey," in Global Turkey in Europe III: Democracy,

Trade, and the Kurdish Question in Turkey-EU Relations, ed. Senem Aydın-Düzgit et al. (Rome: IAI &

Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2015), 122-27; Ergun Özbudun, "Problems of Rule of Law and Horizontal

Accountability in Turkey: Defective Democracy or Competitive Authoritarianism?," in Democratic

Consolidation in Turkey: Micro and Macro Challenges, ed. Cengiz Erisen and Paul Kubicek (Oxford &

New York: Routledge, 2016), 42-44; Berk Esen and Sebnem Gumuscu, "Rising competitive

 
 19
 
The relevance of populism as an analytical tool of Turkish politics was

confirmed yet again in the June 24, 2018 presidential elections.30 President Erdoğan ran

a successful campaign by juxtaposing himself as the representative of the people as

opposed to the proteges of domestic elites and international actors. He adopted the guise

of the “protector of the unprotected” and the “defender of the oppressed.” Victimhood

featured high in his electoral campaign.

Here one should recognize that Erdoğan’s opponents employed similar populist

tactics as they contested the election. For example, the CHP presidential candidate

Muharrem Ince refuted the accusation that he and his party represented the elites. On

the contrary, Ince argued that it was he who represented the people who had been

marginalized after sixteen years of AKP rule. Such efforts to appeal to the parts of

Turkish voters alienated from the CHP nonetheless failed to deliver tangible results.

Meanwhile, the candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik

Partisi, or HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş participated in the presidential election from a

prison cell in Edirne, since he had been detained on spurious charges of supporting

terrorism. In his campaign, Demirtaş also employed rhetoric highlighting that his

candidacy represented the true interests of the people.

Before continuing, one might point out that at least one analyst has contended

that there were at this time three distinct types of populism in Turkey, and that

authoritarianism in Turkey," Third World Quarterly (2016): 1582-86; Antonino Castaldo, "Populism and

competitive authoritarianism in Turkey," Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 18, no. 4 (2018):

478-81. Turkey was often considered as a case where a hybrid regime between consolidated democracy

and authoritarianism gradually emerged.

 
 20
 
practically all major political parties employed some variety of populism.31 That this is

genuine populism is particularly hard to defend; however, not only in light of the

inability of the HDP to address the whole of Turkish society, but also because of the

failure of CHP to escape from its elitist sociopolitical roots.32 In particular Erdoğan’s

campaign against the HDP was easier, given that in the eyes of Turkish public opinion

the HDP remained too closely related to the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and Kurdish

separatism. While in the June 2015 elections the HDP had made unprecedented inroads

into the mainstream Turkish public opinion with its conciliatory and peace-oriented

agenda,33 the resumption of violence between Turkish security forces and PKK fighters

in eastern and southeastern Turkey reactivated the divide between ethnic Turks and

Kurds and its appeal to mainstream Turkish public opinion. The validity of any HDP

claim to represent the whole Turkish people and not just a part of the country’s Kurdish

minority was therefore compromised by ethnic conflict and tension that allowed the

framing of the HDP as marginal or even separatist political party, that could not

represent interests of mainstream Turkish society.

31
Omer Tekdemir, "Left-wing populism within horizontal and vertical politics: the case of Kurdish-led

radical democracy in agonistic pluralism," Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies (2018): 335-40,

https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2018.1497756, https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2018.1497756.
32
The election of Ekrem İmamoğlu as Istanbul’s metropolitan mayor in the double elections of March

31 and June 23, 2019 manifested that a CHP candidate could appeal to the average Turkish citizen and

win a triumphant victory against the AKP candidate, Binali Yıldırım. It is noteworthy though that

İmamoğlu did not succeed by adopting a populist rhetoric, but rather a conciliatory one.
33
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, "The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the 2015 Elections," Turkish

Studies 17, no. 1 (2016): 40-45, https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2015.1136086,

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14683849.2015.1136086. This resulted in increased

support from Turkish social democrats and liberals.

 
 21
 
Under such circumstances, fear-mongering became a useful instrument for the

promotion of the AKP domestic political objectives.34 Highlighting the threat of

economic turmoil in the event of a change of government resonated with the concerns

of the Islamic, conservative middle-class whose wealth substantially improved during

the AKP administration. The fear was compounded given the government’s successful

economic record in its first terms. The party was also stoked apprehension among the

AKP voter base that such a change would result in their renewed oppression as had

occurred in the years before the AKP came to power. Anxieties were also stirred with

reference to Turkey’s Kurds. While in the past the AKP administration had put effort

into removing the Kurdish question as a security concern per se and reframing it as a

question to be solved through Turkey’s democratic consolidation, its volte-face in

summer 2015 led to the rekindling of concerns that the Kurdish issue could become an

instrument for Turkey’s partition. Indeed, officials now presented solving the Kurdish

question through military means as a matter of survival (bekâ) for the Republic.

Charging foreign actors with the responsibility for Turkey’s domestic and foreign

policy woes was not a novelty but proved particularly handy for the AKP

administration. While no conclusive evidence could be presented, suspicions that

Western forces had been among the key plotters of the failed coup and had tried to use

the vulnerabilities of Turkish economy as a weapon against the Turkish government

were widespread in the mainstream, pro-government media and were reinforced by

34
As the new constitution concentrated all executive powers to the president, it became increasingly

difficult to deflect responsibility by arguing that the executive was not in full power. The outbreak of the

economic crisis in summer 2018—reflected by the sharp fall of the exchange rate of the Turkish lira—

was also attributed to foreign actors attempting to prevent the rise of Turkey into a major global actor.

 
 22
 
conspiracy theories popular in sizeable segments of Turkish public opinion. The Syrian

Civil War and the Kurdish question provided additional suitable frameworks.

Consequently, Islamist populism appeared as a politically winning tactic.35

Conclusion

This study has explored the reasons populism has remained appealing in Greece and

Turkey, particularly in light of the challenges both states have been facing over the last

years. Studying how populist agendas in the two countries have thrived politically and

reflected on constitutional reform points to the commonality of methods and the

similarity of cases that would prima facie be considered incompatible. While the

decision to embroider populism with left- or right-wing features remains contingent

upon the intrinsic features of the political history of each country and the agency of its

political leaders, the threat that both left- and right-wing populism constitute for the

integrity of state institutions and the very essence of liberal democracy remains

substantial and real. Right-wing populism has no monopoly on threatening the

foundations of liberal democracy, but is nevertheless an important concern. This also

means that one needs to engage with new emerging fault lines in the political spectrum.

Indeed, using a traditional left-right political dichotomy as a means of analysis may

prove insufficient to explain the current configuration of European party politics.

Crucial divides in European politics may be shifting from the left-to-right axis on

35
Nilüfer Göle, "Turkey Is Undergoing A Radical Shift, From Pluralism To Islamic Populism," New

Perspectives Quarterly 34, no. 4 (2017): 48-49; Bilge Yabanci, "Populism as the problem child of

democracy: the AKP’s enduring appeal and the use of meso-level actors," Southeast European and Black

Sea Studies 16, no. 4 (2016): 595-600.. This was in line with developments across the global political

scene. Populism appears on the rise from the United States to Italy, and from Hungary to Brazil.

 
 23
 
economic and social issues to a separate axis that divides supporters of liberal

democracy from those who prioritize national, class or other communitarian interests

over such values. Attitudes towards individual autonomy and liberal democracy may

indeed prove a more meaningful measure. Sharper analytical tools that would put

populist politicians—regardless of their left- or right-wing political hue—on the same

side of the political spectrum are necessary.

Funding Statement

The publication of this article became possible thanks to the financial support of a 2018

ASMEA research grant. Research for this article was also supported by a European

Commission Jean Monnet Chair grant (EAC-A03-2016-586489).

Notes on Contributor

Dr. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis is Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair of European

Studies at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Bilkent

University. In the academic year 2018-2019, he was Visiting Professor at the Keyman

Modern Turkish Studies Program, Buffett Institute for Global Studies, Northwestern

University. In the academic year 2016-2017, he was Stanley J. Seeger Research Fellow

at Princeton University. He has published four books and numerous academic articles.

His research interests include late Ottoman and republican Turkish politics and history

with a focus on nationalism and democratization.