Changing Gender Politics in Turkey throughout the 2000s: A Feminist Analysis of Gender Policies Pursued by Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP) Governments

Founded as a conservative party combining neoliberalism and Islam in 2001, AKP has had an important role in shaping Turkey's social and political landscape since 2002. Having the majority of the parliament seats since then, the transformation of AKP is reflected in politics, including gender politics. Even though it was established as a conservative-democrat party, AKP has changed its political identity towards authoritarianism over time and Turkey accordingly witnessed a continuous gender regime transformation for better or worse throughout the 2000s. Therefore, in this article, I attempt to show how different periods of AKP have influenced and changed gender politics between the years 2002 and 2020.