Tuba Eldem (Gerda Henkel Fellowship, Oct ‘25 – Jul ‘26) will present her research on:

Patrimonial Power, Plebiscitarian Legitimation and Post-Truth Politics: Explaining the Resilience of Authoritarian Populism in Turkey

14 Мау 2026 (Thursday), 16:30 h.

Moderated by: Magdalena Slavkova

Abstract: This study explains authoritarian populist resilience by examining the long-term survival of Turkey’s AKP government over the past twenty-three years as a critical case. It argues that the durability of Turkey’s competitive authoritarian regime is best understood through the interaction of three mutually reinforcing mechanisms: patrimonialism, populism, and post-truth politics. Building on and extending Gerschewski’s three pillars of authoritarian survival, the analysis demonstrates that each pillar assumes a distinctive configuration under populist rule in a competitive authoritarian context. Legitimation is sustained through plebiscitarian linkages and narratives anchored in victimization and securitization. Co-optation functions through entrenched patrimonial state–business networks, extensive clientelism, and a pragmatic flexibility that enables the ruling party to abandon old allies and integrate new coalition partners as political conditions evolve. Repression operates primarily through politically selective use of legal institutions within an epistemically manipulated environment, where contested facts, conspiracy narratives, and securitized accusations serve to justify punitive state action. Drawing on a process-tracing methodology and longitudinal analysis of the AKP’s rule from 2002 to the present, the study reconstructs how these three mechanisms have been sequentially activated, mutually reinforced, and recalibrated across successive political crises. Theoretically, the study seeks to contribute to the comparative study of resilience of competitive authoritarian regimes  by offering a mid-range analytical framework that bridges literatures on “populism in power”, authoritarian stability and post-truth politics.