From Home Visits to Upper Networks: AKP’s Women Brokers

This paper examines the interplay between the state, the party, and society under the rule of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). It argues that the AKP has cultivated a dual flow of influence, simultaneously mobilizing from the grassroots upward and consolidating authority through top-down channels, thereby positioning itself as an intermediary between citizens and the state. While much of the literature on the AKP has centred on the party and leadership, the crucial role of activists as connective agents remains underexplored. Taking a step back from existing accounts of AKP’s clientelist politics, this study shifts the focus to the brokerage mechanisms that sustain these exchanges. Rather than approaching the brokerage in general terms, it does so through a gendered lens by analysing the AKP’s Women’s Branches as key intermediaries that connect citizens, the party, and the state. In this twofold manner, the article not only traces the strategies and networks of the Women’s Branches in mobilizing women at the local level but also illuminates how gendered brokerage practices shape the reproduction of clientelist politics in contemporary Turkey.