The Gender Gap Report Part III: Türkiye's Partisan Capture of Gender Policy

When International Agreements Become Domestic Battlegrounds

In July 2021, Türkiye became the first and only country to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention—a landmark international treaty on preventing violence against women that Türkiye itself had been the first to ratify almost a decade earlier. Three years later, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's 2024 Youth Study reveals that this decision reflects not a fundamental gender divide among Turkish youth, but something more concerning: the complete partisan capture of what should be consensus policy areas.

This is the third installment in our analysis of Southeast European youth attitudes. While previous reports examined regional patterns, this time we look specifically at how Türkiye's case illustrates ways in which political polarization can consume entire policy domains, transforming technical questions about violence prevention into loyalty tests for competing political camps.

The data reveals a generation where partisan identity has become the primary lens through which young people view gender policy. Political alignment creates gaps of 20+ percentage points between government and opposition supporters, while gender differences within each political camp remain modest—typically 3-7 points. The data tells a story of a generation divided not by gender, but by political and religious fault lines.

The Numbers: Partisan Identity Trumps Gender Identity

Turkish youth are evenly split on the Istanbul Convention withdrawal, but this apparent balance masks profound political sorting. Overall, 25% support withdrawal while 47% prefer staying in the convention. The 5-point gender gap (women slightly more likely to support staying) disappears entirely when viewed through political alignment.

Among government supporters, 37% of men and 44% of women back withdrawal—a 7-point gender gap. Among opposition voters, only 21% of men and 17% of women support withdrawal—a 4-point gap in the opposite direction. The political chasm is five times larger than any gender divide: government and opposition supporters are separated by 20+ percentage points regardless of gender.

Violence Prevention: Women Favor All Approaches More

When asked about preventing violence against women, Turkish youth show consistent gender gaps across all approaches, with women expressing higher support for every method. Harsh punishments top the list—70% of women and 58% of men support tougher sentences, reflecting the most popular approach regardless of gender.

Beyond these gender patterns, political identity shapes preferences unevenly. Among the approaches shown, support for gender equality policies shows the starkest political divide—71% of those wanting to stay in the Istanbul Convention support equality measures versus 45% of withdrawal supporters. Yet this political sorting does not extend to other approaches, where Istanbul Convention attitudes show weak or no correlation with preferences.

The modest support for male rehabilitation programs (24% men, 29% women) reveals widespread skepticism about perpetrator change across all political and gender groups. This suggests that regardless of other disagreements, Turkish youth share doubts about whether violent behavior can be meaningfully altered through intervention programs.

Politics Set the Stage, Religion Fills the Details

Religious participation increases support for Istanbul Convention withdrawal, but the effect varies by political alignment. Among all Turkish youth, withdrawal support rises from around 20% among the least religious to over 40% among the most religious, but this overall pattern masks sharp political differences.

Political identity determines how much religion matters for gender policy attitudes. Among government supporters, religiosity creates a steep gradient—withdrawal support jumps from 32% among secular youth to 55% among the highly religious, a 71% relative increase. Among opposition supporters, religiosity has a more modest but still meaningful impact—support rises from 18% to 26%, a 44% relative increase.

This pattern reveals that political identity sets the baseline for gender attitudes while determining religion's influence. Opposition identification appears to limit the effect of religious conservatism, keeping withdrawal support below 26% even among highly religious youth. Government support, by contrast, allows religious identity to exert its full influence, pushing withdrawal support above 55% among religious supporters.

The contrasting slopes—steep among government supporters, more gradual among opposition voters—suggest that political frameworks shape how religious identity translates into policy attitudes. Among government supporters, religious conservatism finds fuller expression in gender policy views. Among opposition supporters, political identity appears to moderate but not eliminate the influence of religious conservatism, creating a more constrained but still significant religious gradient.

The Ideological Package Deal

Istanbul Convention attitudes form part of coherent ideological packages about gender and power. The graph reveals stark differences between those supporting withdrawal versus staying across multiple gender attitudes. Among those supporting withdrawal, 71% of men and 69% of women believe "women already have sufficient rights," compared to just 35% of men and 30% of women among those wanting to stay in the convention.

Similar patterns emerge across other attitudes. On male political leadership, 39% of men and 33% of women supporting withdrawal agree that "men make better political leaders," compared to 22% of men and 11% of women supporting staying. For employment priorities, around 40% of both men and women supporting withdrawal believe "men deserve jobs more when work is scarce," versus roughly 20% among those supporting staying.

These consistent differences across multiple attitudes indicate that Istanbul Convention positions are not isolated policy preferences but components of broader worldviews about gender roles and power. Young people do not simply disagree about specific international agreements—they operate from fundamentally different assumptions about gender, authority, and social organization.

Demographics Matter Less Than Politics and Religion

Traditional demographic divides prove surprisingly weak in shaping Istanbul Convention attitudes. Urban-rural differences are minimal—only 2.7 percentage points overall—and inconsistent across age groups. In some age cohorts, rural youth actually show lower withdrawal support than their urban counterparts. Age patterns show no linear relationship whatsoever, with correlation near zero, suggesting these attitudes crystallize early and remain stable through young adulthood.

The weakness of demographic effects becomes stark when compared to political and religious identity. While rural-urban differences amount to less than 3 percentage points, political alignment creates 21-point gaps and religious participation generates 23-point differences across the general population. This challenges geographic determinism in social attitudes—urban residence does not automatically produce progressive gender views, nor does rural life necessarily entrench traditional ones.

Instead, political and religious identities—which transcend geographic boundaries in the digital age—prove 8 times more powerful in shaping gender policy attitudes. Young Turks' views on international agreements appear driven primarily by ideological alignment rather than their physical location or life stage, suggesting that information environments and identity communities matter more than traditional demographic categories.

The Polarization Crisis in Microcosm

Türkiye's Istanbul Convention debate exemplifies how polarization undermines democratic governance. When international agreements become symbols in culture wars, their practical impact on violence prevention becomes secondary to their meaning in domestic political conflicts. Young people inherit these polarized frameworks wholesale, with partisan identities determining gender politics more than personal experience or demographic characteristics.

This represents a broader crisis of democratic deliberation. In healthy democracies, citizens can disagree about means while sharing ends—supporting violence prevention while debating specific policies. In polarized systems, ends themselves become contested along partisan lines, making compromise or evidence-based policymaking difficult.

These findings reveal the limitations of international frameworks in deeply polarized societies. When treaties become culture war symbols, their practical effectiveness in preventing violence matters less than their symbolic meaning in domestic conflicts. The challenge for advocates is depoliticizing violence prevention while navigating thoroughly politicized terrain.

Implications

The Path Forward: Rather than relitigating international agreements, focusing on specific, evidence-based violence prevention measures might find broader support. Building coalitions that cross political lines—perhaps united around protecting children or supporting families—could create space for progress even in polarized environments.

For Turkish Democracy: These gender policy debates will shape not just laws but the character of democratic discourse itself. Whether Turkey can develop frameworks for deliberating contested issues without complete partisan sorting may determine the health of its democratic institutions.

For Youth Development: Young Turks increasingly inhabit mutually incompatible ideological universes. Whether future generations can bridge these divides—or whether polarization will deepen—depends partly on educational and social institutions' ability to create spaces for cross-cutting dialogue.

Conclusion

Türkiye's Istanbul Convention debate is not fundamentally about gender—it is about the health of democratic deliberation in polarized societies. The modest gender gaps masked by political chasms reveal how partisan identity has captured domains that should remain open to evidence-based debate.

For Türkiye's youth, these patterns suggest not inevitable trajectories but choices about how to organize political life. The decisions they make about bridging or deepening these divides will determine not just the future of gender equality but the character of Turkish democracy itself. Their challenge is learning to disagree about means while preserving shared commitments to human dignity and violence prevention—the foundation of democratic governance in diverse societies.

The Istanbul Convention withdrawal may have ended Türkiye's formal commitment to international gender frameworks, but the real struggle is over whether Turkish society can develop domestic capacities for reasoned debate about contested issues. That outcome remains undetermined, shaped by choices young Turks make about political engagement, cross-cutting dialogue, and democratic citizenship.

About the Data

This analysis draws from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's Southeast Europe Youth Study 2024, examining attitudes among 1,233 young people aged 14-29 in Türkiye. The survey included specific questions about Istanbul Convention withdrawal and violence prevention methods, providing unique insights into gender policy attitudes among Turkish youth.