The study of the Iron Law of oligarchy in terms of Republican People's Party

Robert Michels identified in his book "Political Parties" written in 1911 that German Social Democrat Party had promised democracy to people at election campaigns, but democracy hadn't been able to enabled inner-party. Michels, who deeply analyzed happenings historically, sociologically and psychologically in a wide world geography from South America to continental Europe and the far East from Ancient Greek to the beginning of 1900's, resulted that oligarchy is exceptionally indispensable in all organizations (especially socialist/social democrat parties) with his say "who says organization, says oligarchy" in his theory defined as "the Iron Law of Oligarchy". Michels, who based on the dispensability of oligarchy to the nature of organization together with psychological tendencies of leader and members, defended that the delegation system, centralization and bureaucratization in organizations; oligarchical tendencies, prominent skills and advantages leader had; incompetency/carelessness and consistently leader seeking of members strengthened oligarchy in organization. The scientists has made examination over lots of political parties, trade unions and professional associations in order to test the validity of Michel's opinions that had put forth at the Iron Law of Oligarchy. The purpose of this research is also examines the Michels' hypothesis put forth at the Iron Law of Oligarchy whether compatible or not by exposing oligarchical tendencies in the organizational structure of the Republican People's Party. As a matter of fact, the data collected from party regulation, party rules, party publication, newspaper and magazine news, TÜİK data, confidential book and internet resources about ideological and organizational change and development of the party, and the evaluation was made concerning inner-party democracy and oligarchy in Republican People's Party by being based on Michels' hypothesis. In order to support the hypothesis and evaluations, a pool was carried out with 1.204 Republican People's Party's members in Antalya scale, and interviews were made with Antalya's 19 district's head of the party. As a result, it is proven that Republican People's Party members have no intra-party power equally, in other words they can't actively participate the intra-party decision making and policy making processes, and, the intra-party decision making and policy making processes is dominated by the powerful oligarchical structure consisting of the leader and the ruling minority in the party organization. Thus, it is resulted that the Michels' hypothesis put forth at the Iron Law of Oligarchy is valid in the terms of Republican People's Party. Keywords: Organization, Bureaucracy, the Iron Law of Oligarchy, Republican People's Party