Undoubtedly, the most frequently invoked concept to describe Türkiye’s social and political atmosphere is “polarisation.” From the media to academia, from coffeehouse chats to parliamentary stands, everyone claims that the country is split right down the middle and is experiencing deep political polarisation. However, this widespread acceptance harbours a significant fallacy. Describing this tension, which permeates the very nerve endings of society, as “political polarisation” is a highly inadequate, even misleading definition. This is because there is no clash of policy proposals, solution packages, or ideological visions that are, by nature, essential to politics.
Political polarisation implies deep disagreements on concrete issues such as tax rates, foreign policy strategies, or education models. Yet, what is being experienced in Türkiye is a content-free “identity polarisation” driven entirely by affiliations. This is not a ground for rational debate; it is a destructive fire, stoked systematically and bubbling up along the axes of “you vs. me” or “us vs. them.”
The core contention of this analysis is straightforward: what Türkiye is experiencing today is not genuine political competition, but a deliberately cultivated emotional cleavage—designed and perpetuated by political actors who find it far easier to safeguard their comfort zones through division than to engage in substantive policy contestation.
Politics Without Policy and the Identity Trap
In contemporary political science, this dynamic is conceptualised as “affective polarisation” [i]—a condition defined less by voters’ attachment to their own parties than by the intensity of their hostility toward the opposing camp. What matters is not partisan enthusiasm, but partisan animosity. This framework captures the Turkish case with striking precision. The political arena has gradually ceased to function as a forum for debating how best to govern; instead, it has evolved into a space in which those who fall outside one’s identity boundary are framed not as competitors, but as existential adversaries.
In this environment, it is almost impossible to encounter any policy proposal. This is because, by its nature, identity politics does not require concrete promises. For politicians, this is a comfort found nowhere else. It is possible to hide failure, incompetence, or lack of vision behind this constantly maintained identity shield. It is at this point that the systematically stoked fire comes into play. This fire is kept alive regularly to ensure that the parties continue to view each other as enemies.
The Comfort of Lazy Politics and Negative Partisanship
The “lazy politician” typology, which sustains this identity-based polarisation, manifests itself particularly in opposition strategies. Generating politics through hatred and fear is far less costly and much more comfortable than generating politics through projects and solutions. For a lazy opposition, framing the responsibility of being elected solely around negative rhetoric directed at those in power—and being content with just that—is extremely attractive.
“Negative partisanship”[ii] , frequently encountered in the opposition bloc, is the most concrete example of this laziness. To persuade a voter of a better education system or a fairer income distribution, a politician must gather data, build teams, and take risks. However, there is a much more effortless way to consolidate the masses: pointing out the risks of the status quo continuing. When the language of politics is built on a “perception of threat” rather than promises, the voter is guided not to make a “choice”, but to fulfil an “obligation”.
Lazy politicians reduce almost every issue to a simple “us vs. them” framework rather than offering policy proposals, technical, or ideological solutions. The narrative is constructed not as “we have a better economic model,” but as “you are suffering because those people are in charge.” By attributing economic hardships solely to the existence of the opposing identity, they transform material problems into fuel for identity hatred. This mechanism of “reductive framing” allows them to evade the burden of policymaking while consolidating their base through directed anger—a tactic that aligns with Jan-Werner Müller’s definition of populism as an exclusionary moral claim to representation [iii].
This strategy relieves the politician of the burden of proving their own merit or the merit of their solution proposals. Legitimacy is derived not from what they can do, but from the anxiety over what the other side might do. Thus, the political struggle shifts from a race to “build better” into an effort to preserve the status quo, defining itself through the existence of the adversary.
Media Echo Chambers and the Construction of the “Other”
The mechanism that pours the most gasoline on this polarisation fire is the current media system. Traditional and new media, instead of being beacons illuminating the political sphere, have turned into propaganda apparatuses acting as spokespersons for tribes. Media content is curated not with news value or public interest in mind, but to keep the anger of the target audience (the base) alive.
From a discourse analysis perspective, the language of the media is not “informative” but “signalling.” In news texts and debate programs, the other side is constantly labelled with specific adjectives and declared illegitimate. Social media echo chambers [iv] managed by algorithms reinforce this process. Individuals are exposed only to content that confirms their own biases. In these virtual ghettos, the argument of a dissenting voice is not heard, and even if heard, it is taken out of context and devalued. Instead of serving as a translator between different segments of society, the media functions as an “operator of anger,” inciting them to turn on one another [v].
The Zero-Sum Game and the Collapse of Dialogue
The greatest devastation caused by identity polarisation is the transformation of politics into a “zero-sum game.” In political polarisation, compromise is possible; however, where identities clash, compromise is seen as “treason.” The belief takes root that for “Us” to win, “They” must lose absolutely. Politics has been trapped in that dangerous phase Giovanni Sartori warned about years ago: a “zero-sum game” order in which parties view each other not as legitimate rivals but as threats to be destroyed [vi].
This psychological atmosphere causes irreversible ruptures in the social fabric. Someone from the other neighbourhood is no longer just a “citizen who thinks wrongly,” but an “other” with whom it is impossible even to speak. While this perception makes the politicians’ job easier, it paralyses the society’s problem-solving capacity. The ability to produce solutions to common problems with collective wisdom disappears because there is no sense of “us” left to sit around the table. To put it in Chantal Mouffe’s conceptualisation: politics in Türkiye has been severed from the ground of democratic “agonism”, where legitimate rivals compete, and dragged onto a destructive ground of “antagonism”, where enemies clash [vii]. The greatest success of the lazy politician is to transform the rival into an enemy and hold their own audience hostage in this trench warfare.
Conclusion: Is There a Way Out?
In summary, the process in Türkiye is not political polarisation but an identity crisis in which political elites hold society hostage to protect their seats or gain power. The “you-me” fight is both the cause and the result of the impoverishment of politics. While lazy politicians and rating-chasing media reap the fruits of this facility, the bill is funded by social peace.
Exit from this spiral is possible primarily by making the correct diagnosis. It is necessary to realise that the tension experienced is not a “political difference of opinion,” but a conscious “emotional manipulation” reinforced by opaque financial ties. Liberating politics from the monopoly of identities and symbols and pulling it into the domain of data and concrete projects requires moving beyond principled wishes toward concrete structural interventions. Otherwise, this artificial fire will continue to turn not only politics but also the will to coexist into ash.
Two leverage points are critical to overcoming polarisation. First, institutional reforms that strengthen political participation practices, prioritising local governance, are essential. Local politics is the most practical avenue for forcing the exchange of ideas on tangible issues that affect people’s daily lives. Instead of being objects of abstract identity wars and political debates that seem distant and unreachable, the ability of individuals to participate directly in material decisions that affect them (such as transport, infrastructure, or neighbourhood cleanliness) can protect them from the trap of emotional manipulation. Rather than gossiping about distant issues from the “spectator’s seat,” experiencing active political socialisation—even on matters as simple as garbage collection times—can strengthen solution-oriented debate over anger-based polarisation. As local services mean either comfort or hardship for everyone, regardless of party or identity, they force individuals to cooperate, even if they are from rival parties—a dynamic consistent with Gordon Allport’s Contact Hypothesis [viii].
Second, and perhaps more importantly, the financial bond between politics and media—whether traditional outlets, digital platforms, or individual media figures such as journalists and influencers—must be scrutinised. The solution lies in exposing and severing the opaque funding channels that incentivise media to act as polarisation operators. Ensuring transparency in media financing and breaking this “subsidised economy of hatred”—a feature of the clientelist relationships described by Hallin and Mancini [ix]—is vital.
Endnotes
[i] Iyengar, S., & Westwood, S. J. (2015). Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization. American Journal of Political Science, 59(3), 690–707. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12152
[ii] Abramowitz, A. I., & Webster, S. (2016). The Rise of Negative Partisanship and the Nationalization of U.S. elections in the 21st century. Electoral Studies, 41, 12–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.001
[iii] Müller, J.-W. (2016). What is Populism? University of Pennsylvania Press.
[iv] Sunstein, C. R. (2017). #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton University Press.
[v] Berry, J. M., & Sobieraj, S. (2014). The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility. Oxford University Press.
[vi] Sartori, G. (1976). Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press.
[vii] Mouffe, C. (2005). On the Political. Routledge.
[viii] Allport, G. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley.
[ix] Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge University Press.
