AKP’s Move to ‘Conquer’ the Center-Right: Its Prospects and Possible Impacts on the Democratization Process

Abstract: The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is moving to fill the void on the center-right by claiming the legacy of the Democratic Party. In this essay, the center-right legacy of conservative modernization and its influential political strategy of conservative populism will be introduced, since the AKP is also trying to reproduce them under novel conditions. Then, five interrelated sociological processes will be highlighted in order to assess the prospects of the AKP realizing its strategy. The subsequent section will deal with the problematic legacies of both the center-right and political Islam that could hinder full-fledged democratization of Turkey. Finally, some moderate predictions will be proposed by reconsidering the precedent set by the Justice Party in the 1960s and 1970s.