Authoritarian states, neoliberal policies: A historical comparison on changing forms of authoritarianism in Turkey and India

The issue of authoritarian statism and authoritarian governments has been at the center of academic and scientific discussions for a long time. Particularly in recent years, as far-right political parties have achieved successive electoral successes in different geographical regions of the world, the interest of different disciplines, especially political scientists, on this issue has increased. In this regard, it is seen that questions such as how authoritarian governments came to power, under what conditions this took place, and how effective the changes in voter behavior that have been experienced for a while are on the rise of political parties with anti-democratic tendencies, stand out as questions frequently sought answers to in comparative country studies. It is noteworthy that in a significant part of these studies, a wave of authoritarianism that is gaining momentum parallel to the rise of right-wing populism is discussed. Turkey and India are two countries that find a place in many scientific studies prepared under the title of authoritarianism. However, there are almost no studies that examine these two countries comparatively through the relationship between populism and authoritarianism. Therefore, this study aims to comparatively examine the changing forms of authoritarianism in the neoliberal period in Turkey and India, which display quite different appearances, on the basis of Nicos Poulantzas' conceptualization of "authoritarian statism". Thus, it is thought that similar reasons will be discovered explaining the rise of authoritarian populist political parties in both Turkey and India.