Party Dissolutions and Democratic Consolidation: The Turkish Case

Abstract

Political party competition constitutes an important component of democratic consolidation. In this respect, party dissolutions are generally regarded as impeding consolidation of democracies. This study addresses the relationship between party dissolutions and democratic consolidation, and offers an analysis of recent dissolutions of religiously and ethnically oriented political parties in Turkey. Drawing on Geoffrey Pridham's distinction between 'negative' and 'positive' democratic consolidation, the study concludes that the dissolutions of religiously oriented parties have contributed to the former while the dissolutions of ethnically oriented political parties have not. Meanwhile, the possible dissolution of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP), representing 46.6 per cent of the population, would constitute a challenge to 'positive' democratic consolidation.