ABSTRACT
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) was founded in 2001 and has been more successful than any other party with an Islamic origin in the history of the Turkish Republic. This study provided an assessment of the AKP’s development as an organization. Drawing on a large number of primary and secondary sources, interviews, analyses of quantitative data collected for this study and secondary analyses of existing data sets, the party’s character as an organization, its internal power structure, its electoral roots, strategy and leadership have been examined in the context of its organizational environment (the constitution, important veto players, international actors). In theoretical terms, the study has built largely (but not exclusively) on Panebianco’s (1988) classical work on party organizations, focusing on his notion of “institutionalization” in its two main dimensions, “autonomy” and “systemness.” Nevertheless, the study is not merely an application of Panebianco’s model of institutionalization to a new case, as it seeks to extend his framework by focusing on trade-offs between autonomy and systemness that the AKP’s leaders have faced, a phenomenon neglected by Panebianco. Hence, the work contributes to both the empirical and the theoretical study of the AKP as an organization.
