Political Representation of Women in Turkey

Institutional Opportunities versus Cultural Constraints

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2021.106

Keywords:

Political Polarization, Turkey, Majoritarianism, Party System, Women's Repesentation

Abstract

This paper analyzes both the descriptive and the substantive sides of women’s representation in Turkey and argues that although the proportion of women politicians in the Turkish Parliament increased from only 4 % in 1999 to 17.6 % in the 2018 general elections, this has not been reflected in an increase in women MPs’ effectiveness. This article mainly argues that as electoral competition increases, women candidates’ chances of being elected decrease. On the other hand, more equal distributions of seats between parties positively influence women’s representation. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, women’s movements and grassroots demands for women’s rights in Turkey, which coincided with the highly welcomed EU accession process, complemented these institutional opportunities to foster women’s representation and break traditional patron-client relations. Overall, however, cultural constraints, such as high polarization between parties and the clash of Islamist and European values inhibit women MPs from cooperating on policies concerning women, and strict party discipline reduces the parliamentary effectiveness of Turkish women politicians.

Author Biography

Burcu Taşkın, Istanbul Medeniyet University

Born in Istanbul in 1982, Burcu Taşkın graduated from Sabancı University with a bachelor's degree in Economics in 2005 and a master's degree in Political Science in 2007. After completing the Southeast European Studies Master's program at the University of Athens in 2008, she received her PhD in Political Science from Istanbul Bilgi University in 2014. Since 2015, she is an Assistant Professor at Istanbul Medeniyet University, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, discipline of Comparative Politics. Her areas of interest are political representation of minorities, democratization, gender studies, voter behaviour, Turkish–Greek relations, and Balkan politics

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Published

2021-01-28

How to Cite

Taşkın, B. (2021). Political Representation of Women in Turkey: Institutional Opportunities versus Cultural Constraints. Open Gender Journal, 5. https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2021.106

Issue

Vol. 5 (2021): Open Gender Journal

Section

10th European Feminist Research Conference in Göttingen (2018)

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