Ruling for the People or Ruling the People? Governing the Third Sector in Turkey
Résumé
This chapter attempts to unpack the government of the people in Erdogan's Turkey. It suggests that people’s power has been the motto of the JDP (Justice and Development Party)’s rise to power, starting with a strong populist, anti-establishment narrative. Once in power, the JDP in fact proceeded to weaken all non-elected, tutelary powers (military, bureaucracy, justice). This has resulted in the JDP remaining both electorally hegemonic and free from checks and balances, thereby establishing a government of the majority. However, the chapter also questions how the JDP has produced and constructed the “people’s will,” by framing popular participation—electoral, but also NGO-based. In particular, it suggests that the JDP in office has produced new ways of governing the third sector. It has institutionalized new patterns of cooperation with NGOs (statuses, funding, inclusion in public decision-making). These have encouraged the construction of a close and cooperating third sector, and marginalized alternative elements of it. These patterns of cooperation produce the image of a power close to and listening to the people, while sidelining or even criminalizing many bottom-up expressions of popular will.