Publication Title
Politics & Gender
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-16-2025
Subjects
Political environment -- Turkey, Codes of ethics -- politics
Rights
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Abstract
Do party elites strategically nominate (non)veiled women? While research exists on Muslim-minority countries, little is known about the dynamics of such strategies in Muslim-majority contexts, where the interplay of Islam, secularism, gender, and veiling is complex. To address this gap, I examine electoral competition in Turkey, investigating whether parties strategically nominate (non)veiled women for mayoral seats in opposing party strongholds to capitalize on the political symbols associated with women's identities — a strategy | term "symbolic leverage." Using an original dataset, elite interviews, and electoral discourse analysis, I find that parties leverage the symbolic value of veiled and nonveiled women candidates to appeal to rival party voters. Moreover, interviews with Islamist party elites show that nominating nonveiled women serves multiple objectives for them: signaling tolerance for secular lifestyles, assuaging concerns about Islamization, attracting swing voters, and projecting a democratic image. These findings illuminate how parties utilize women's inclusion in polarized contexts.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1017/S1743923X25000200
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44065
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Citation Details
Sari-Genc, Elif, "Symbolic Leverage: Nominating (non)veiled Women As an Electoral Competition Strategy in Polarized Turkey" (2025). Politics and Global Affairs Faculty Publications and Presentations. 5.
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44065