The Social Bases of AKP Local Power

Co-authored with Süleyman Kıroğlu and published in European Politics and Society, this study asks how dominant parties organize and sustain local political power in socially fragmented urban contexts. It focuses on the Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the level where the party actually meets the electorate — the district.

Data and Methodology:

The analysis draws on a prosopographic study of 684 AKP district municipal council members elected in Istanbul in 2019. Using K-modes clustering of the councilors’ civil society affiliations, it examines how local political authority and brokerage are structured through differential access to social, economic, and organizational resources.

Key Findings:

The clustering yields seven empirically distinct groups that consolidate into three broader archetypes of local political elites:

• Rural notables, rooted in hometown (hemşehri) networks;
• Professionals, embedded in business and occupational organizations;
• Ideological cadres, emerging from educational, charitable, and Islamist organizations.

These archetypes differ systematically in their social bases and organizational embeddedness, implying differentiated capacities for political mediation and representation at the district level. Supplementary analyses of migrant representation, hometown-association density, and gendered pathways into office further show that political overrepresentation does not necessarily reflect grassroots organizational embeddedness, and that women’s advancement into local office relies disproportionately on semi-public networks.

Contribution:

By theorizing elite differentiation at the lowest level of elected office, the study advances debates on clientelism, local governance, and dominant-party resilience in Turkey and comparable settings.

Publication:

Kıroğlu, S., & Koytak, H. Z. (2026). Rural notables, professionals, and ideologues: the social bases of AKP local power. European Politics and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2026.2620579