TURKEY. GENERAL AND SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS IN ELECTORAL STRATEGIES OF ETHNIC PARTIES

10.31857/S032150750010448-4

   In the 2000s Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) significantly expanded the cultural rights of ethnic minorities. Despite the fact that subsequently Turkish nationalism again has prevailed in the state policy on ethnic minorities, these reforms had a huge impact on the perception of ethnicity in Turkish socio-political discourse and mass consciousness. Moreover, the «incompleteness» of these reforms led to the politicization of ethnic minorities in the country. One of the main developments of this process was the electoral promotion of a number of parties with a clear ethnic component ethnic parties. This article focuses on the main features of ethnic parties in modern Turkey, and conducts a comparative analysis of the electoral strategies of two such parties - pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party and pro-Circassian Party of Pluralist Democracy. The author uses different data, and concludes that between two parties there are as common features, caused by similarity of the ethnic and cultural problems of ethnic minorities in Turkey, as well as differences caused by territorial, demographic, electoral, and political factors. Despite the predominance of a mono-ethnic electorate in HDP and ÇDP, in order to maximize the electoral potential both parties in their political strategies appeal to other ethnic groups which are not represented in Turkish politics with own political platforms.