Explaining the micro dynamics of the populist cleavage in the ‘new Turkey’

Over the last decade, the literature on populism has flourished as it has sought to account for the causes, definitions, and consequences of the significant support and prolonged political success of populist leaders and parties. However, the political and emotional reception of populist performance is still an under-researched subject and research on populism mostly remains at the macro level focusing on the policies and discourses of the populist leaders/parties. In this article, by focusing on Turkey, we shift our emphasis to how populism is received, reproduced, and reflected in the political framework of the diverse electorate and how the impact of certain events, leaders, and crises is magnified by their emotional content. Based on 71 in-depth interviews conducted in Istanbul, Turkey, this article argues that populism creates diverging emotional maps that overlap with political polarization among the populist-leaning constituents and detractors of populism. Taking Turkey’s 15 July failed coup attempt as a ‘crisis’, we study how crisis situations strengthen populist leaders.