Politics, Religion and Leadership in Turkey : The Case of Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The leader, a pattern of society as a role model, can transform society and his own constituency in a positive or negative way while politics has given direction by power of influence and management. Like Turkey, in a society which is based on leader- oriented politics and democracy, the leader's past, thoughts, personality, religious aspects, ideologies, goals and strategies are very important. Namely, the leader, who is the architect of change and transformation, has the ability to be lever of poiticts and significative effects on it. This article aims to examine the concept of political leadership, which has a strong influence in political cases of Turkey through example of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Sine qua nons of Erdogan’s success is combined with the social class he belonged, the education he got, the ideology, he had and the religious values he adopted at an early age. Under these conditions, he has been in politics since middle school and has become a leading figure of Turkish political life since 2001. Thus, examination of his parameters of success and the political portrait has become important. In this study, it is aimed to analyze the speeches of Erdogan in the media and to capture the codes of his success and to present his political portrait based on a descriptive method.

Keywords

Politics, leadership, democracy, conservative-democratic