Unleashing hate: How Turkey's anti-street dog movement hijacked politics

This thesis analyzes Turkey's anti-street dog movement as a local manifestation of alt-right discourse, and traces its evolution from being a fringe social media discourse to a mainstream political influence resulting in controversial legislative changes. Highlighting a notable gap in Human-Animal Studies (HAS) and Critical Animal Studies (CAS) concerning the conceptualization of street animals, the study argues this omission reflects epistemological biases rooted in Western contexts. Using computational and qualitative methodologies, including Twitter/X data, it finds that anti-street dog rhetoric is predominantly male-dominated, overlaps significantly with anti-feminist sentiments, and employs moralizing, securitizing, and populist frames characteristic of alt-right discourses. The research traces the trajectory of this discourse from online platforms through minor far-right parties into the governing AKP's political strategy following the party's 2024 electoral defeat. By co-opting this discourse, the AKP sponsored legislative amendments that reversed previous animal welfare protections, legitimizing mass relocation and culling of street dogs. The study underscores that this policy shift was driven less by genuine public demand than by elite misinterpretation of artificially amplified online visibility and the institutional embedding of extremist discourse. Ultimately, the study illustrates how marginal digital movements can substantially influence state policies under authoritarian contexts through elite co-optation and strategic framing, emphasizing the necessity for HAS/CAS scholars to engage more deeply with the lived realities of street animals in non-Western societies.