Erdoğan's Tears — Populist Performances and Emotions in AKP's Turkey
A scholarly look at how Erdoğan uses public displays of emotion as political performance — and why his supporters read them as authentic.
Why we picked this
Populism is usually analyzed through policy and grievance — this talk focuses on something harder to pin down: the emotional theater that makes strongmen feel legitimate to those who follow them.
What does it mean when a sitting president weeps in public? For scholars of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the answer is less about sincerity than about craft. This lecture examines the emotional performances that have become central to AKP’s political identity — the tears, the anger, the grief displayed before cameras — and asks what these moments actually accomplish.
The argument is that populist leaders don’t just offer policies or scapegoats. They offer feeling. They model a kind of emotional authenticity that resonates with supporters precisely because it breaks with the detached professionalism of technocratic politics. Understanding how that emotional grammar works is essential to understanding how populism sustains itself.
Part of the UW Middle East Center’s public lecture series. Free and open to the public.