S ¸akir Dinçs ¸ahin 1 A Symptomatic Analysis of the Justice and Development Party’s Populism in Turkey, 2007–2010 THE ORIGINS OF THE JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY ( JDP) CAN BE traced back to the 1970s. 2 It is the latest representative of a chain of Islamist parties, which started with the establishment of the National Order Party in 1970. Accused of being the focal point of fundamen- talist activities attempting to undermine the secular nature of the Republic, these parties have been closed down over the years either by military administrations or by the Constitutional Court. First, the National Order Party was closed down by the Constitutional Court in May 1971. Following that, the National Salvation Party, which was established in November 1971, survived until the military coup d’état in September 1980. 3 After the end of the military regime in 1983, the Welfare Party (WP) was founded to continue the ideology and pro- gramme of the defunct Salvation Party. Despite popular support (for example, it had 21 per cent of the votes in the 1995 election) for the WP, which enabled it to form a coalition government (June 1996– June 1997) with the centre-right True Path Party, it was closed down by the Constitutional Court in January 1998, again due to the party’s 1 I would like to thank Feroz Ahmad and Yas ¸ar Geyikdag ˘ı for their invaluable comments and suggestions, which greatly improved this article. All remaining errors are solely the author’s responsibility. 2 Feroz Ahmad, ‘Politics and Islam in Modern Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies, 27: 1 (1991), pp. 3–21. 3 For an analysis of the Islamist parties before 1980, see Binnaz Toprak, Islam and Political Development in Turkey, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1981; and Yas ¸ar Geyikdag ˘ı, Political Parties in Turkey: The Role of Islam, New York, Praeger, 1984. Government and Opposition, Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 618–640, 2012 doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.2012.01377.x © The Author 2012. Government and Opposition © 2012 Government and Opposition Ltd Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.