Justice and Development Party

Overview

The Justice and Development Party, commonly known by its Turkish initials AKP, is a political party in Turkey founded in 2001 by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It won the 2002 national election and took office that November, beginning a long period of electoral dominance. Erdoğan became prime minister in 2003, after a legal restriction delayed his appointment. The party initially joined a broad coalition of devout workers, business leaders, secular liberals, nationalists and adherents of Political Islam. Economic growth, business development and support for European Union accession helped sustain that coalition during its early years in government.

The AKP changed Turkey’s political institutions as well as its economy and foreign relations. It brought the once-dominant military under civilian political control and gave religion a larger place in public life and politics. Repeated election victories showed substantial public support, but the party’s governing record also includes Erdoğan’s concentration of power, restrictions on opposition activity and pressure on independent media. Its early European Union agenda and later cooperation with NATO coexisted with disputes over Iran, strains with Israel and an effort to expand Turkey’s regional influence.

Founding and ideology

Erdoğan’s political background lay in Turkey’s Welfare Party and the later Virtue Party. Those parties were rooted in Political Islam, understood as an ideology seeking to shape government and law. A faction that broke from them established the AKP around a more broadly appealing conservative, center-right program. The new party retained leaders and supporters from that earlier political tradition while seeking voters beyond it. Erdoğan presented the AKP as “conservative democratic” and compared it with Europe’s Christian Democratic parties. That description helped distinguish its electoral program from the more openly Islamist platforms associated with its predecessors.

The party’s emergence followed a period of economic crisis and weak confidence in established political parties. Its combination of religiously conservative leadership, a business-friendly program and a promise of stable government attracted groups that had not previously formed a single electoral bloc. Devout workers and adherents of Political Islam found representation alongside business leaders and voters who favored economic reform. Some secular liberals supported the party’s early European Union agenda and its challenge to the military’s political influence. Nationalists were also part of the initial coalition. These constituencies did not share every goal, but their combined support gave the AKP a route to national power in 2002.

In government, the AKP promoted business development and European Union accession while presiding over economic growth that strengthened its popularity. Its rise also shifted the balance between elected officials and institutions that had long exercised independent political power. Erdoğan’s government reduced the army’s ability to act as an autonomous political force, bringing the once-dominant military under civilian political control. This institutional change was central to the party’s claim to represent democratic government. Over time, however, Erdoğan’s growing authority and pressure on critics raised a separate question about how that civilian power was exercised.

History

The AKP won Turkey’s 2002 national election and took office in Ankara in November, months before the Iraq War. Erdoğan could not immediately become prime minister because of a legal restriction arising from an earlier conviction linked to a poem he had recited while in politics. He assumed the premiership in 2003. During preparations for the Iraq War, disagreement between Turkey’s government and military complicated United States planning. Neither the AKP nor the military wanted responsibility for a decision to enter the war, illustrating the difficult institutional balance during the party’s first months in power.

Economic growth and public investment helped the AKP build a durable electoral base. Its vote share rose to almost 47 percent in 2007 and almost 50 percent in 2011. The party held 327 parliamentary seats after the 2011 election. Opposition parties nevertheless retained representation, including the Republican People’s Party and Nationalist Movement Party. The 2011 result expressed confidence in Erdoğan’s economic management and the stability of AKP rule, while votes for opposition parties also reflected concern about the scale of his power. Electoral success therefore established the party’s popularity without settling questions about its treatment of political rivals or independent institutions.

Turkey’s foreign policy became more active during the AKP’s early years. Its leaders sought regional influence through diplomacy and other forms of soft power. Between November 2002 and April 2009, Turkish prime ministers made at least seven visits to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, while foreign ministers made at least eight visits to Iran and Syria. The party’s early European Union program remained an important part of its international identity, but its regional ambitions and positions on security issues produced recurring friction with Western allies.

That friction became visible in disputes over Iran and NATO. The AKP government voted against United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran. It quarreled with NATO over a missile-defense initiative in 2010 and attempted to block a NATO mission in Libya. Its position later shifted closer to United States policy on Iran, and Turkey cooperated with Washington on Libya and Syria. In September 2011, Turkey joined NATO’s missile-defense project. The sequence showed that cooperation with Western allies remained possible even as the AKP pursued an independent regional agenda and challenged particular allied decisions.

After Turkey gave Syrian opposition groups and armed rebels refuge in 2011, Turkish Alawites grew suspicious of the AKP’s Syria policy. Alawites later played a major role in demonstrations against the government, including rallies attended by about 2,000 and 8,000 people. Domestic criticism broadened during protests that began at Istanbul’s Taksim Square in 2013 and spread elsewhere. Demonstrators challenged Erdoğan’s concentration of power, censorship and the government’s treatment of minorities. They also opposed the prospect of constitutional changes that could strengthen the presidency before the planned 2014 presidential election. The protests brought together people with differing secular and political views, including liberals and supporters of older republican traditions.

Pressure on independent media became a defining criticism of AKP rule. Government pressure on critical outlets contributed to self-censorship among Turkish journalists. The party’s continued success at the ballot box did not remove the significance of restrictions on journalists and opposition voices. The contrast was visible after the 2015 elections, when assessments of renewed political stability were accompanied by concern about limits on freedom of speech and the press, persecution of opposition groups and Erdoğan’s increasingly concentrated authority.

The AKP suffered its first decline in a parliamentary election since taking power when it received 41 percent of the vote on June 7, 2015. Its seat count fell from 327 in 2011 to 259, leaving it unable to govern alone. Turkey’s economic slowdown contributed to the loss of support, as did opposition to the presidential system Erdoğan sought. The result interrupted a sequence of rising vote shares and forced consideration of coalition government. Israel was less prominent as a campaign issue than in some earlier contests, but the electoral setback did not resolve the strains in Turkish-Israeli relations.

Erdoğan pushed for another election after the June result and the failure of coalition talks. Campaigning on a promise to restore stability, the AKP recovered its electoral strength in the snap vote held on November 1, 2015, approaching its 2011 share of nearly half the vote. The election took place while European Union leaders sought Turkish help in reducing refugee flows into Europe. Before the vote, German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised Turkey €3 billion in aid and progress on European Union visa requirements. Turkey’s role in managing migration gave the renewed AKP government greater weight in its dealings with European leaders.

The party’s long hold on national power did not prevent later losses in local elections. In March 2019, Erdoğan’s party lost Istanbul’s mayoralty to the opposition for the first time in 25 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, AKP officials debated whether to impose a full lockdown or partial restrictions intended to limit economic harm. The government also planned to release up to one-third of Turkey’s prisoners while keeping political prisoners incarcerated. In a June 2020 survey, support for converting Hagia Sophia was particularly strong among AKP supporters, reflecting the place of religion in the party’s political identity.

Structure and leadership

Erdoğan founded the AKP and remained its central political figure through its rise from a new party to Turkey’s governing force. He led it to the 2002 victory, became prime minister in 2003 and subsequently served as president. His leadership connected the party’s electoral organization, government program and public identity. The party also maintained senior officials responsible for foreign relations; in November 2019, its deputy chairman for foreign relations met Jihad Yaghmour, a representative of the terrorist organization Hamas in Turkey. The meeting was one example of the AKP’s political contacts beyond Turkey’s formal relations with other governments.

The AKP’s organization drew strength from its ability to unite voters with differing priorities behind Erdoğan’s leadership. Its first governing coalition included supporters of economic liberalization and European integration as well as religious conservatives. As the party remained in office, Erdoğan’s personal authority became more prominent. The 2013 protests and opposition to his proposed presidential system in 2015 showed that the scope of executive power had become a major division in Turkish politics. Opposition representation in parliament and later municipal victories demonstrated that electoral competition continued, even as critics faced pressure from the government.

Attacks and operations

The AKP is a political party, and its relevant operations include electoral campaigns, regional diplomacy and cooperation with political organizations. Its government pursued influence in the Middle East after 2002 through official visits, relationships with neighboring states and support for nongovernmental activity. Its changing positions on Iran, Libya, Syria and NATO missile defense shaped Turkey’s dealings with Western allies. These policies formed part of a broader effort to establish Turkey as an influential regional power while retaining the benefits of its Western security ties.

Relations with Israel became especially strained under Erdoğan and the AKP. After Hamas violently seized power in Gaza in 2007, Israel maintained a blockade of Gaza. Erdoğan’s party sponsored a flotilla intended to break that blockade. The Turkish IHH organization led the Mavi Marmara flotilla and operated in Gaza. IHH maintained political cooperation with the AKP, while its activists had supported Erdoğan’s rise to power and helped strengthen his political position. Turkish state capabilities were made available to IHH, including ports and satellite communications. Following the flotilla incident, the AKP also used forceful anti-European rhetoric as it sought electoral support.

The party’s contacts with Hamas extended beyond the flotilla period. Hamas figure Khaled Mashal attended an AKP congress in 2012. In November 2019, Jihad Yaghmour, Hamas’s representative in Turkey, met the party’s deputy chairman for foreign relations. These contacts occurred amid a wider deterioration in relations between Turkey and Israel, intensified by Erdoğan’s rhetoric and the AKP’s long dominance of Turkish politics. The party’s early European Union stance did not prevent these tensions or its disputes with Western allies over Iran and NATO policy.

Current status

The AKP remained a major national political force after its recovery in November 2015, but opposition victories exposed limits to its electoral reach. Its loss of Istanbul’s mayoralty in 2019 was followed by a broader municipal setback on March 31, 2024. Erdoğan’s party received 35 percent of the vote in those elections and failed to finish first for the first time since it came to power. The results marked a change from the near-half share of votes it had won in the 2007 and 2011 national elections.

The party’s record spans early growth and reform, repeated electoral mandates, a reduction in the military’s independent political role and sustained participation in Western institutions. It also includes concentrated executive power, pressure on independent media and opposition voices, disputes with NATO allies and prolonged tension with Israel. Those developments remain central to understanding both the AKP’s influence on Turkey and the political opposition it has faced.