After the initial harsh municipal police intervention and demolition of a couple of tents inhabited mostly by youth activists at İstanbul’s Gezi Park on the 31st of May, the protests spread like wildfire all over the country. According to data provided by the Ministry of Interior, there have been protests in 79 cities of Turkey (out of 81), and around 2.5 million people participated. On the one hand, the protests clearly had a lasting effect on the Turkey’s politics and global perceptions of Turkey; and on the other, national polls conducted and articles written by pollsters cast “Gezi protestors” as a “minority” with meager actual political impact. Reference to a ‘numeric miniscule’, ‘insignificance’ is a sign of the ‘majoritarian times’ in the political arena of Turkey. Concept of “majority” relies by and large on the “parliamentary majority”. But where does the Grand National Assembly stand as an institution and the parliamentarians as the “representatives of national will” as far as Gezi Protests are concerned? This paper evaluates points of view of the parliamentarians who participated in person to the protests. How do they assess their role as “representatives of the public” in politics, as “official representatives” of both the state and the “people”? Were they (and are they still) a part of the “disenchanted”, as political envoys expressing the ‘public view’, or do Gezi Protests signify their ‘failure’ as politicians as the public disappointment with politics find its ultimate translation in street protests? Was “Gezi” a triumph of the ‘oppositional parliamentary politics’, or a consequence of its crisis? As parts of “old politics” (meaning the existing political parties), in what ways do Gezi Protests have significance for fruition of “new politics”? Based on in-depth interviews with the current members of the parliament who took active part in the Gezi Protests, this paper presents both a historical recording of “protesting parliamentarians’ point of view” of “what Gezi was/is” and critical analyses of their personal narrative, of their role as key political agents as protestors themselves. Aims of this research are providing an account of “how it happened” through the eyes of key participating agents and questioning role of the Grand National Assembly as an institution, its members in terms of public representation at this particular juncture/crisis of Turkey’s politics-which currently exudes the buzzwords “ballot box” and “majority’s will”/“people’s will”.

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.

This article focuses on the relationship between discourses of economic development and prospects for democracy in Turkey. It does so by tracing the political discourse of high-ranking government officials and journalists close to them to show how they use arguments for economic development as a tool to politically legitimize interventions into liberal democracy. I illustrate the dangers caused by the discourse surrounding economic development to democracy by looking at the Gezi protests of Summer 2013. I show how demands for pluralism and respect to different lifestyles -which are indeed crucial aspects of liberal democracy- were instead framed by the government as chaos created by agents of the so called “interest lobby” and provocations caused by those who want to stop Turkey’s economic development from within and from without. I analyze the Gezi case in comparative perspective with presidentialism debates and the corruption scandal of December 2013. I detect a similar pattern in these cases as well such that demands for democracy, transparency, checks and balances are pitted against economic development. Citizens are made to choose between these two sides. What is more, they are pushed to choose a vaguely defined economic development over demands for democratization. I detect this as a serious threat that is not only valid for Turkey but for other developing countries as well. By demonstrating the potentially disruptive effects of economic development dynamics to democracy, I hope to shed new light on the relationship between democracy and economic development.

The Gezi movement has caught the attention of many national and international observers and has become a focal point of hot debates about Turkey’s standing on human rights, press freedom, and democratic consolidation. On May 28, 2013, outrage over plans to replace a park in Istanbul’s Taksim Square with a shopping mall has become a national spectacle shortly sparking anger over policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). But what are the root causes of the Gezi Movement? This research intends to provide answers to this question by analyzing changing macropartisanship patterns in Turkey. Considering the 2002 election as a “critical election” that brought the AKP into the limelight of Turkish politics as a hegemony-aspiring party, this article integrates the theories of social cleavages with the techniques of electoral geography. In light of all national elections in Turkey since 2002, spatial regressions based on an original province-level dataset show that religious and ethnic cleavages are pivotal to determine the support levels of major parties, after controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors. Especially, ideological polarization over religious cleavages between the AKP and opposition parties, namely the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) and pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the spatial dependence of neighboring provinces have brought about a snowballing effect, which is behind the social movements in Turkey, including the Gezi movement. This study proves that the social divisions investigated and the populations these divisions are supposed to represent can only be understood through grasping the local dynamics and interactions within which they operate. Of course, these cleavages do not automatically turn into social outbursts. Consolidated democracies find ways to settle down grievances peacefully through institutionalized means. They also use liberal democratic mechanisms to prevent the “tyranny of the majority,” which helps alleviating perceived existential threats by different social groups. The increasing authoritarian tendencies of the AKP rule, coupled with the constant decline of settlement and cohabitation mechanisms, paved the way to the strong expression of deep seated cleavages in the summer of 2013.