Female politicians of the AKP: Gendered Uses and Ambiguities of Conservative Party Ideology

Abstract

Studies on women’s political inclusion in conservative parties often examine the role of ideology. This article seeks to demonstrate that the role of ideology is best understood by considering its uses by and against female politicians. It does so by looking at multiple layers of conservative ideology: considering first conservatism as a discourse, the paper shows that women adhere to the AKP’s conservative gender ideology in order to ensure their political survival. Looking then at conservative ideology as a practice, the paper concludes that locally-sensitive analysis is necessary in order to identify how the constraining intra-party processes play out in women’s political exclusion. Depending on the constituency, exclusionary party mechanisms can be reinforced or undermined. Finally, the paper identifies the uses of conservative ideology by female politicians. While this aspect is often disregarded, women manage to make use of the party ideology and to navigate the narrow social and political space through a series of adaptation practices. The paper uses qualitative data (ethnographic and interview material) collected within Turkey’s conservative-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) between 2014 and 2019.

Keywords

• women’s political inclusion
• conservative parties
• ideology
• AKP (Justice and Development Party)
• local politics
• Turkey