Anti-Immigration Rhetoric in Flux : The Case of Turkey

This research analyzes party competition dynamics over the immigration issue in Turkey since 2011. In the context of the European Union member states, the rise of anti-immigration attitudes among the electorate strengthened populist radical right parties and transformed mainstream politics. Anti-immigration themes became recurring on the political agendas of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) across Europe and have been considered one of their defining features. The case of Turkey stands as an anomaly to this pattern. Turkey has received a significant number of refugees, almost equal to 5% of its population, in less than a decade. However, the refugee influx does not strengthen the right-wing populism based on anti-immigrant attitudes. Instead, right-wing populism in Turkey has a pro-immigrant position due to the coreligiosity of refugees with the native population. The anti-immigrant attitudes in Turkey, however, are mainly held by non-populist, more democratically inclined secular political parties due to their cultural distance from the incoming refugee populations. To make this argument, we analyze party competition dynamics over the immigration issue in Turkey between 2011 and 2021, the period Turkey received more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees, and mapped political parties’ positions regarding immigration. Using the holistic grading method, we developed a rubric to analyze the tone and coded the parliamentary group speeches of the top five party leaders (N = 900). Our analysis shows that despite being a right-wing populist, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appears more pro-immigrant. While the opposition partners – the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi-CHP) and Good Party (Iyi Parti-IYI) – are not populist, they have a higher anti-immigration tone compared to the AKP. Yet the results also illustrate that the overall tone of speeches has not passed the midpoint between 2011 and 2021. Put differently, overall discussion of the refugee issue has not become anti-immigrant during this period. However, the establishment of the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi-ZP) by Ümit Özdağ in 2021 has significantly affected the political rhetoric and contributed to the increasing the issue salience of immigration and the negative framing of refugees. In other words, our study supports the cultural backlash thesis claims that an increasing number of immigrants leads to an intergroup cleavage within society. Parties that have constituencies that perceive immigrants as incompatible with their cultural values support anti-immigrant policies. Hence, we argue that the issue salience of immigration among populist parties and anti-immigrant attitudes are related not to populism per se but to the cultural differences and citizenship frames. Furthermore, we also show that after the emergence of a political party with explicit anti-immigrant political rhetoric, all political parties, including mainstream ones, shift towards more anti-immigrant rhetoric regardless of their cultural distance from the refugee populations. Overall, the case of Turkey sheds light not only on the party politics of immigration but how the issue of immigration reorders the dynamics of party competition.