National security, minorities, and the politics of fear: a comparative study of ‘security-driven populism’ in Israel and Turkey

Israel and Turkey have, for an extended period, been governed by right-wing populist regimes led by Netanyahu and Erdoğan, respectively. This paper argues that these regimes exhibit a distinct variant of exclusionary populism – security-driven populism (SDP) – which operates through mechanisms that make it particularly effective and resilient. Building on existing research, the study examines political developments in both countries since the 2000s to analyse how SDP has emerged and evolved. It focuses on how Netanyahu and Erdoğan constructed political discourse around national security concerns linked to their largest ethnic minorities, Palestinians in Israel and Kurds in Turkey, and how this discourse targeted these groups, their supporters, and the political opposition more broadly. Comparing these two cases, we identify four conditions that facilitate the emergence of SDP: historically rooted security anxieties, ethnic cleavages linked to national security, the rise of populist leaders, and political challenges threatening their hold on power.