Rethinking the Turkish center-right in 1990s: erosion or replacement? The case of the Nationalist Action Party

Looking at the results of the elections in Turkey in the 1990s, it can be seen that there has been a continuing decrease in the votes of the traditional Turkish centerright parties such as the Motherland Party (MP) and the True Path Party (TPP) while a converse situation has been observed in the case of extreme right parties such as the Nationalist Action Party (NAP) and the Welfare Party (WP). Another striking point about the voter alignments in Turkey during the last decade has been that no party has been the first party in successive elections. These developments led to the questions about whether the Turkish center is eroding, or the extreme right parties are coming to the center. The aim of this thesis is to attempt to clarify the case of Turkish center-right in the last decade in the sense whether there has been a shift in the center-right votes with the erosion of the center or replacement of the center right is taking place, with special emphasis on the case of the Nationalist Action Party. This thesis argues that there has been erosion in the Turkish center-right in the last decade and the NAP obtained some votes from the traditional center-right voters, while maintaining its own voter basis. This study offers explanations for the erosion of the traditional Turkish center-right together with the rise of the NAP in recent years both as a political party and as a political movement