Democratic Backsliding and Women’s Empowerment in Turkey: Competing Political Discourses on Employment

This study examines how democratic backsliding shapes the evolution of gender equality discourses by analyzing women’s employment policy debates in Turkey, an upper-middle-income country experiencing significant democratic backsliding over the last decade. The existing scholarship demonstrates the ways in which backsliding incumbents reverse policies. However, less attention has been paid to the effect of democratic regression on gender equality discourses across the political spectrum. By comparing discourses from both the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (RPP) between 2002 and 2024, this research explores shifts in the political framing of women’s employment—a key dimension of women’s empowerment as defined by Kabeer. Although it is impossible to specify the exact date of democratic backsliding, scholars studying Turkey widely recognize clear patterns of democratic erosion. These patterns became more pronounced following the JDP’s first term in office, particularly after 2010. Taking 2010 as the critical turning point marking the government’s authoritarian drift, this study compares the pre- and post-2010 periods. Furthermore, the post-2010 period witnessed critical political milestones that had profound implications for gender equality. These included the entrenchment of conservative gender discourse, increasing restrictions on women’s organizations and feminist activism, the institutionalization of family-oriented social policies. Most notably, this period culminated in Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in 2021. These developments provide a crucial backdrop for assessing the intersection of democratic backsliding and discourses on gender equality. This article employs a systematic thematic analysis of parliamentary debates to trace how democratic backsliding has influenced competing discourses around women’s employment. The analysis identifies two major themes central to the feminist political economy literature: i) the perception of motherhood and ii) the regulation of care work, both pivotal in shaping women’s employment opportunities and broader empowerment. Drawing on an original dataset of parliamentary records, this study examines how these themes evolve differently for the incumbent and opposition parties over time. The resulting findings illuminate not only the evolution of discursive strategies of the incumbent regime but also reveal how opposition parties adapt or contest them within the shifting democratic landscape. By situating women’s employment at the nexus between democratic backsliding and feminist political economy, this research contributes to a nuanced understanding of how democratic erosion affects both the policy agenda and political discourse around gender equality.