Governance crises and resilience of authoritarian populism: 2023 Turkish elections from the perspective of Hirschman’s ‘exit, voice, and loyalty’

Abstract

The May 2023 elections in Turkey are puzzling because public support for President Erdoğan did not erode despite political-economic failures of considerable magnitude. The economy was ailing, the government’s performance in containing natural disasters was dismal, and oscillations in foreign policy were perplexing. Yet, Erdoğan managed to win elections once again, giving him the mandate to continue ruling the country over the next five years. What explains this political outcome in the face of ‘multiple governance crises’? We adopt Albert O. Hirschman’s ‘exit, voice, and loyalty’ framework to explain the multiple but interrelated sources of the resilience of authoritarian populism in Turkey. We suggest the ‘exit, voice, and loyalty’ equilibrium in the 2023 Turkish elections requires an integrated analysis along two dimensions, each interacting with and mutually reinforcing the other: the economy-identity nexus and the domestic-external nexus.