In communities abroad, the Erdogan regime has a head start. Democratic activists are responding to repression with mobilization. By Gözde Böcü in Foreign Policy on May 10, 2023.
In the past decade, Turkey has become notorious for suppressingopposition voices in its diaspora communities. From renditions to mob attacks in the heart of Europe, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has intensified and diversified its tactics against critics. Amid this atmosphere of repression, more than 3.4 million eligible Turkish citizens living abroad were called to cast their votes ahead of the country’s election on May 14, which could end the 20-year rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As a whole, the Turkish diaspora has long been a bastion of support for Erdogan. In the last few general elections, support for the AKP from abroad has outperformed the party’s domestic support. Backing for the AKP has been especially high in parts of Western Europe—Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands—where the party has at times polled 10 points higher than within Turkey. The success of the AKP in these communities seems tied to the demographic composition of the diaspora: Socioeconomic disadvantages and political exclusion, combined with identification with Sunni Islam, have favored the ruling party.
However, diaspora mobilization against the regime has grown in recent years. Activism against Erdogan and his government among Turks living abroad began with solidarity demonstrations during the 2013 Gezi Park protests. But in the aftermath of the violent coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, new waves of emigration—including exiled intellectuals, members of the Kurdish movement, and fed-up secular youth—have revitalized dissident movements in the diaspora. During this year’s election, these changes and expanded activism mean that Turkish voters abroad could finally throw some weight behind Erdogan’s challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
For years, the AKP has gone to great lengths to maintain its competitive advantage among the Turkish diaspora. Since the 2010s, its outreach strategy has shifted, with Erdogan’s government allocating significant state resources to widen its influence within diaspora communities. Among other steps, the establishment of a state agency tied directly to the president’s office has allowed the AKP to carry out selective outreach to pious and nationalist members of the diaspora by tailoring educational and cultural programs to these groups.
Erdogan’s AKP has also used grassroots strategies within migrant organizations and mosque communities across Europe to boost identification with the party and mobilize the diaspora vote. By 2018, the state-led organization Union of International Democrats had established more than 253 local representations worldwide, tasked with coordinating regime efforts to consolidate power abroad. From organizing controversial mass rallies for the Erdogan regime to conducting covert election campaigns within mosque and migrant associations, the organization—together with embassies, mosques, and migrant associations—has cemented the AKP’s popularity, reach, and legitimacy abroad.
At the same time, the AKP has extended its repressive tactics—long deployed within Turkey—into the transnational sphere, reflecting its commitment to silencing dissent wherever it appears. The Erdogan government has framed some members of the diaspora as enemies of the state, describing them as an external security threat. The most notoriously targeted group are members of the Gulen movement, a religious organization led by cleric Fetullah Gulen once allied with the Erdogan regime. Accused of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt, Gulenists have been purged from pivotal positions in Turkey’s bureaucracy. The regime has systematically targeted those residing abroad through defamation campaigns, renditions, and Interpol red-notice searches.
The regime also targets pro-democratic opposition groups including Kurds, members of the Alevi religious minority, leftists, secularists, and progressives. Many people among these groups strive for political inclusion and protection of ethnic and religious minorities and strongly oppose Turkey’s turn toward autocracy under Erdogan. In Germany, which hosts by far the largest Turkish diaspora population, at 3 million, members of the Alevi community have faced targeted attacks against their institutions and leaders allegedly carried out by regime loyalists; Kurdish groups have long reported surveillance and repression from both the Turkish and German states.
But these groups have responded to repression with anti-regime mobilization. Since Turkey’s reform to transnational voting rights in 2012 allowing members of the diaspora to vote, almost all of Turkey’s main opposition parties have established representative offices to mobilize votes abroad. Among the most active opposition parties are the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). Ahead of this year’s elections, six opposition parties united behind one candidate: CHP leader Kilicdaroglu. Last month, an alliance that includes the HDP also called on its supporters to back him against Erdogan.
In the last decade, the CHP has established a tightly knit network of 41 local representative offices across the world, and membership has grown steadily. To further coordinate the activities of the CHP abroad, the party has also recently appointed a representative in parliament focused on transnational issues. Meanwhile, the HDP has also extended its reach into the Turkish diaspora in Europe. It faces harsher repression and financial hardship than the CHP and has largely relied on grassroots efforts to mobilize the diaspora vote. Drawing on preexisting Kurdish and leftist networks, the HDP managed to achieve good results in the 2018 elections in countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Smaller Turkish opposition parties have followed suit, such as the Green Left Party, which engages in activism on behalf of the HDP after the Kurdish party’s de facto criminalization in Turkey. Ahead of the election, almost all parties have organized meet-and-greets with Turkish opposition politicians, distributed information material, and ferried voters to polling stations abroad. Despite the opposition’s united stance this year, gathering electoral support for Kilicdaroglu has met with challenges. Diaspora activists engaged in electoral mobilization have faced repression ranging from physical and verbal attacks during street-level campaigning as well as disinformation campaigns, cyberbullying, and other forms of digital repression on social media platforms.
Complicating matters for democratic activists is the relative indifference of host governments. Turkey’s transnational opposition has long pointed to systematic surveillance and harassment through covert and informal channels, stressing the need for greater protection, safeguards, and support for democratic activism conducted in exile. Since 2016, German, Dutch, and French policymakers have taken some steps to limit Erdogan’s transnational crackdowns. But measures such as prohibiting mass rallies, banning pro-regime groups, or extending selective warnings to high-risk targets have only gone so far toward curbing the long reach of the AKP.
Without state resources at their disposal, the democratic opposition has faced an uphill battle to unite and mobilize the diaspora vote against Erdogan ahead of this year’s elections. The biggest challenge for the opposition, both inside and outside of Turkey, remains an uneven playing field. Through the systematic capture of democratic institutions and the weakening of civil society, the AKP has so far maintained its hegemony over Turkish politics. Nevertheless, pro-democratic groups within the diaspora have grown significantly since the 2018 election—and they could get a boost as the government’s popularity declines due to rising inflation and its mishandling of the deadly recent earthquake in southeastern Turkey.
There seems to be unique momentum to oust Erdogan from power on May 14. In response, he and his political allies have already started to frame the upcoming election as a coup attempt, raising fears about vote rigging or violence. No matter the outcome of the election, it will certainly have ripple effects in Turkey’s communities abroad.
Gözde Böcü, a doctoral fellow at the Citizen Lab in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto.