The Role of the Opposition Bloc in the Democratization Process of the Last two Decades in Turkeys

Just as the political structure of any country can have a positive or negative impact on the democratization process; The opposition bloc, which includes political parties and currents, civic institutions, etc., has a dual positive and negative impact on this process. In Turkey, the influence of the opposition bloc in the democratization process has been relatively positive for a century. However, in the last two decades, with the rise of the Islamist Justice and Development Party to power, the Turkish opposition bloc has adopted varying approaches to the political structure, which has had a more negative impact on democratization process. The current research has examined the performance of the Republic People's Party as the largest opposition party, focusing on three main approaches of Turkish parties towards the political structure. To this end, a historical institutionalism approach has been adopted using library and digital resources. In terms of methodology, this study has employed the process tracing method. Turkish opposition bloc, especially the political parties, though considered to be a major indicator of democracy, seems to have adopted undemocratic political procedures such as "appeasement procedure", "supportive procedure" and "deviant procedure" in the last two decades.

Keywords:

Opposition Bloc , Democratization Process , process tracing , Political Parties , Turkey