A study on women's political participation in the example of İyi Parti

The most important feature that distinguishes democratic systems from all other alternative systems in the world is that they allow the society to participate in the political participation process by giving them the right to choose and to have a say in political issues. In other words, democratic systems enable the people's influence on political power and the political process through political participation. However, it would not be wrong to say that women and men do not have equal opportunities in the political participation process. It can be easily stated that the main reason for this is that women cannot find enough space in the organization and management staff of the parties and that women remain in the background in policy production processes compared to men. Although women's right to vote and stand for election was granted much earlier in Turkey than many other countries, they couldn't gain equal place neither in executive management team of political parties nor in political participation process. Within this scope, the purpose of this thesis is to study the political participation process of women in Turkey in the 2000s, considering İYİ Parti as an example as its general president is a woman. Within this context, the similarities and differences of İyi Parti from the other political parties with respect to political participation process of women and party's perspective on women; will be presented regarding the party constitution, election manifesto, negotiations with the party officials and their discourses on women taking into consideration their public declarations. This thesis will exemplify the policy and practices of the political parties in Turkey about the women's political participation and provide information that although they have different views and ideologies, even a political party with a female general president is similar to the other political parties concerning the women's political participation.