Civic engagement in Turkey's democracy

For several decades and their corresponding generations in Turkey, politics has been the least preferred career option for the country?s talent. A combination of the almost regular military interventions in the democratic process since Turkey first moved to a multiparty system, numerous corruption scandals irreversibly degrading the reputation of politicians in the public eye, and fears based on the consequences of political activism in previous generations led Turkey?s youth to distance themselves from politics, as well as the civil society surrounding it.

In the aftermath of the Gezi resistance, the movement ?Oy ve Ötesi? (Vote and Beyond) was formed with three concrete, concise and objective targets that, if executed well, would present an opportunity to train the forgotten muscle of collaboration toward impact. The three targets we chose to focus on were voter turnout, transparency around individual candidates and independent election monitoring. Further, the ?Ötesi? (Beyond) component conveyed a clear glimpse of the founders? vision that the approach and mechanisms could readily be replicated into any area of civic engagement in democratic processes. 

The first objective of Oy ve Ötesi was to increase voter turnout. The result of Oy ve Ötesi?s campaigns was a record-high voter turnout of nearly 90 percent. Second, Oy ve Ötesi aimed to facilitate the link between candidates and voters. In the current system where candidates are determined centrally rather than through a primary election, the ?customer? for a candidate is first and foremost the party leadership. The result is that voters, particularly in urban areas with large populations, typically do not even know the name of the MP for whom they are voting. Our second objective was that, as...