Authoritarian Populism in Everyday Life: An Intersectional Approach to the Shifting Contexts of “Comfortable” in Istanbul

How, in what ways, and why does gender organize de-democratization processes? As part of a global decade of rising authoritarianism and right-wing populism, an executive takeover subverted democracy in Turkey too. Following grounded theory methodology, I analyze the 90 in-depth interviews and 90+ hours of urban bus ethnography that I conducted in Istanbul during the immediate post-emergency rule period (2018-2019). I document and explain how this current version of right-wing authoritarian populism plays out differently in ordinary men and women’s lives, and how ordinary people’s interactions contribute to or challenge the restructuring of the realm of everyday life, outside of parliaments, elections, and constitutions. The literature on right-wing populism and regime change, in general, is limited by (1) investigating institutional dynamics such as elections, political party families, and ideologies, but not everyday life, (2) paying little if any attention to the gendered organization of authoritarian ideologies, institutions, practices, and policies as well as everyday life, and (3) almost exclusively analyzing cases from Latin America and Europe. Most published research still focuses on Christian right-wing and left-wing populisms. In this paper I show the intersectional organization of authoritarian regime-building in everyday life via people’s changing levels of feeling “comfortable” in public spaces. I find that the urban geography of “comfortable” is increasingly becoming context-dependent for non-veiled women and Kurdish men. While Turkish men do not report a significant change in their feeling comfortable, veiled women report feeling more comfortable and even liberated in many respects compared to past; still, their presence in some majority-secular and even in some pious settings continues to be challenged as social polarization deepens. This theme of contested micro fields crosscuts class, gender, and ideological position and closely related to the shifting boundaries of daily “normal(s)” in Istanbul such as choice of attire, use of language, ways of doing gender, and presenting ethnic and religious identities. I show how social and political polarization, aggravated by party elites and the media, affect men and women differently in the way they interact with each other. I contribute to the literature on polarization in authoritarian populisms by asserting that polarization shapes not only party politics and voter behavior but also people’s daily perceptions and networks and vice versa. Discussing these questions will pave the way for increasing knowledge about the potential consequences of prolonged populism and provide insights on how to strengthen democracy as a way of life as well as governance.