초록/요약

Turkey is the first country that joined(2011) and left(2021) the Istanbul Convention. The Istanbul Convention is the first international convention that specifies the violence against women as a type of discrimination against women and violation of women’s rights. After Turkey withdrew from the convention, the Istanbul Convention became the convention without ‘Istanbul’. AKP which is the party in power of Turkey is an Islamic party that has seized the power for a long time of 20 years through democratic election in the secularistic country. What was the background and motivation for this AKP regime to decide to join and leave the Istanbul Convention? Paying attention to the fact in which the AKP regime politicized the process of joining and leaving the Istanbul Convention following the progress of expanding, maintaining, and stabilizing its power, this study aimed to explain the process. In the early days in office, the AKP practically pursued the universal values like democracy and human rights in order to hold the secularistic establishment in check, to secure the legitimacy of party, and also to achieve the national long-cherished wish as Europeanization. Because of such political necessities, the AKP regime initiatively participated in the Istanbul Convention. The AKP regime won four general elections in a row, which was expanded and stabilized through the election of President Erdoğan in the first presidential direct election, and change to the presidential system. During this period, the Europeanization was in a stalemate as the negotiation to join the EU was repetitively halted and resumed. In this context, the AKP started visually revealing the Islamic identity, and then declared the withdrawal from it by emphasizing its heterogeneity with the Istanbul Convention. The AKP regime’s decision to join and leave the Istanbul Convention was the paradoxical selection of politicizing process.