Party system fragmentation and fractionalization in Turkey under the AKP'S competitive authoritarian rule

How does the political party system fragment and fractionalize during the episodes of democratic backsliding and autocratization? Current scholarship demonstrates that parties have become more pronounced due to the competitive nature of elections and the low-level institutionalization of authoritarian regimes, without explicitly laying out the causal mechanisms. Through an analysis of Turkey since the mid-2010s and by using both the institutional and sociological schools, this article examines how the number of parties in competitive authoritarian regimes significantly increases. The alteration of electoral laws and growing authoritarianism inadvertently benefit opposition parties, as democratic decline fosters new political cleavages, resulting in splits in established parties. Additionally, with the incumbent's media power and its influence over state institutions, new parties are encouraged to split from major opposition parties by bolstering intra-party splits.