Neoliberalism and the emergence of neoliberal populism: The case of Justice and Development Party

If neoliberal populism was unexpected in Latin America, it was unimaginable to label a party which bore from the Islamic national outlook (milli görüş) tradition in Turkey as ?neoliberal populist?. In the end, the national outlook tradition?s rhetoric of ?just order? (adil düzen) strictly opposed the principles of free market in favor of neglected domestic Anatolian industrialists, and denigrated liberal democracy as a western invention, both of which constitute the two main pillars of neo-liberalism. However, the continual rise of popular support for the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, hereafter JDP) after the parliamentary election of 2002 despite its harsh neoliberal agenda marks an important turning point for the Islamist politics in Turkey and provides an interesting example of how neo-liberalism and populism can coexist in diverse cultural settings.The relentless rise of the JDP caused different responds among the intelligentsias. From counter revolutionist to democratization of Turkish politics. The aim of this paper, however, is to focus on the neoliberal populist nature of the party rather than to engage in an assessment of the above mentioned approaches. It seems paradoxical to observe that the party has a significant support among those classes who suffer the most from the neoliberal policies. In order to understand this broad public support, there is a need to explore the grey field between neo-liberalism and populism. We can distinguish one main research question for the purpose of this paper. ?What is the relationship between populism, democracy and neo-liberalism?? In the Turkish context this question can be translated into two corresponding questions: ?How could JDP manage to pursue a neoliberal populist path?? and ?What consequences would it have on democracy in Turkey?? Within this frame, it is hoped to provide an example from Turkey which could be used for comparative studies, and to contribute to the literature about neoliberal populism.The findings of the study suggest that the colloboration between neoliberalism and populism may yield similar negative results about representative democracy irrespective of the cultural setting in which neoliberal populism emerges.