Women’s constitutive representation in Turkey: parliamentary debates on headscarf, abortion and violence against woman

Abstract

This dissertation critically examines the substantive representation of women in Turkey by analyzing the parliamentary discourses of female MPs on headscarves, abortion, and violence against women. It investigates how these issues are framed, how womanhood is defined, and how such concerns are embedded in broader political narratives. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study explores parliamentary speeches from 2002 to 2023, focusing not only on what is said but how meanings are constructed, contested, and situated within wider debates. The analysis develops along two key dimensions. First, it identifies diverging definitions of womanhood, shaped by ideological, cultural, and party-based positions. Second, it traces how these discourses of womanhood are embedded in broader frameworks—community-based debates (citizenship, belonging, national identity) and practice-based debates (regime, governance, secularism, and democracy). By tracing how these discourses evolve across political parties and over time, the study uncovers the complex dynamics that shape women MPs’ narratives. It argues that women’s political representation is shaped by, and in turn helps shape, macro-level factors and socio-political contexts. The findings challenge the assumption that women in parliament constitute a homogeneous group and contribute to the literature on both substantive and constitutive representation. Ultimately, the study offers a dual analytical framework that links discursive constructions of womanhood to broader ideological and institutional struggles, arguing that substantive representation is inseparable from its constitutive dimension—particularly in dynamic and complex political environments.