<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>This study attempts to measure the deliberation quality of the Democratic Opening Debates in the Turkish Parliament through the Discourse Quality Index (DQI). The majority of studies have been conducted on the deliberation quality of relatively homogenised and developed Western societies and on less conflictual or contentious topics. In these countries, democratic culture has been institutionalised. On the contrary, Turkey is a developing country and has been going through an ethnic conflict involving violence for many decades. Thus, this case study aims to make an original contribution to empirical deliberation studies. Researchers have examined the 88-page stenographic records of the Democratic Opening Debates and put forward a DQI score. According to the findings, the controversial debates fulfill only 40% of high-level deliberative discourse ethics. This result demonstrates that the ideal deliberation process does not exist in Turkey even though a convenient atmosphere is created for deliberations by means of official procedures. Ethnic division in the society has a profoundly negative impact on the quality of deliberations.</p>
</abstract>

This study attempts to measure the deliberation quality of the Democratic Opening Debates in the Turkish Parliament through the Discourse Quality Index (DQI). The majority of studies have been conducted on the deliberation quality of relatively homogenised and developed Western societies and on less conflictual or contentious topics. In these countries, democratic culture has been institutionalised. On the contrary, Turkey is a developing country and has been going through an ethnic conflict involving violence for many decades. Thus, this case study aims to make an original contribution to empirical deliberation studies. Researchers have examined the 88-page stenographic records of the Democratic Opening Debates and put forward a DQI score. According to the findings, the controversial debates fulfill only 40% of high-level deliberative discourse ethics. This result demonstrates that the ideal deliberation process does not exist in Turkey even though a convenient atmosphere is created for deliberations by means of official procedures. Ethnic division in the society has a profoundly negative impact on the quality of deliberations.

Patterns of the Parliamentary Debates: How Deliberative are Turkish Democratic Opening Debates?

Politics in Central Europe

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This study attempts to measure the deliberation quality of the Democratic Opening Debates in the Turkish Parliament through the Discourse Quality Index (DQI)....

Patterns of the Parliamentary Debates: How Deliberative are Turkish Democratic Opening Debates?

Published Online: Jul 12, 2022

Page range: 175 - 199

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pce-2022-0008

Keywords
Deliberation, Discourse Ethics, Discourse Quality Index, Turkish Parliament, Democratic Opening, Divided Societies

© 2022 Çiğdem Görgün Akgül et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Patterns of the Parliamentary Debates: How Deliberative are Turkish Democratic Opening Debates?

Published Online: Jul 12, 2022

Page range: 175 - 199

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/pce-2022-0008

KeywordsDeliberation, Discourse Ethics, Discourse Quality Index, Turkish Parliament, Democratic Opening, Divided Societies

© 2022 Çiğdem Görgün Akgül et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Deliberation, Discourse Ethics, Discourse Quality Index, Turkish Parliament, Democratic Opening, Divided Societies