The widespread protests that shook Turkey in Summer 2013 have prompted one central question: why did such small protests against the building of a shopping mall on Gezi Park in the center of İstanbul turn into the biggest example of mass civil movement in the republic’s history? This paper suggests that following an analysis of the last decade of the Turkish party system, one can easily detect the signals of instability and social unrest in the country – long before these mass demonstrations took place. Accordingly, one of the root causes of recent events is the current structure of the party system, which suffers from a high degree of polarization that leads to a crisis of representation at two levels: on the one hand, a high degree of polarization has left certain segments of society unrepresented, while on the other, the AKP government has ceased to maintain a balance between responsiveness and responsibility. Representation involves not only satisfying the supporters of the party in government but also acting in a consistent and prudent fashion in public policy making, so providing for both responsiveness and responsibility. From this perspective, crisis of representation occurs not only when certain segments of society feel unrepresented, but also when citizens do not believe that their representatives are acting on behalf of them. Fundamentally, this is what has happened in Turkey. On the one hand, severe polarization has created a huge gap in the party system which corresponds to center politics, and this gap has left unrepresented certain segments of society, particularly better-educated, politically sophisticated and economically sustainable voters, who tend to identify with the center of the political spectrum and maintain conciliatory positions. Conversely, particularly after 2011 general elections, in its third term, the government has started to ignore the demands of an important segment of society which tends to define itself as libertarian and secular, not only by attacking lifestyles and impoverishing social life but also by ignoring their demands when making policy. In other words, the government has moved from its responsible governing role and instead enhanced its representative role, particularly for the Islamic community. Subsequently, the contention here is that accounting for the sources of the Gezi protests also requires a careful analysis of the party system of the last decade, which has significant explanatory power.