CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Aytekin, Kutup |
|---|---|
| Title | Resisting Illiberal Financial Nationalism: The Case of Turkey |
| Summary | This thesis investigates the opposition movements’ agency in authoritarian regimes by examining how the CHP, the main opposition party in Turkey, has resisted Erdoğan’s illiberal financial nationalism. Drawing on Gramscian concepts of hegemony and counterhegemony, this thesis argues that the opposition needs to launch a successful counterhegemonic offense to challenge the hegemon’s illiberal financial nationalism. Through uncovering CHP’s resistance patterns by process tracing and semi-structured interviews, this thesis argues that the party’s rhetoric and popular mobilization strategy determined the strength of CHP’s counterhegemonic offense. This thesis analyzes the CHP’s resistance in two periods: Between 2018 and 2023, the CHP swiftly integrated a democratic economic nationalist discourse into its rhetoric, which increased the party’s appeal to the public. However, the CHP failed to successfully launch a counterhegemonic offense because the party could not mobilize the people around its discourse. Since 2023, the CHP has sharpened its democratic economic nationalist discourse while actively mobilizing the masses. Such a strategy enabled the CHP to launch a successful counterhegemonic offense, which resulted in CHP’s victory in the 2024 local elections. |
| Supervisor | Dóra Piroska |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/aytekin_kutup.pdf |
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