Abstract:

Focusing on the politics and value relationship at its core, this study aims to determine the values embedded in the discourses of political actors and to understand changed and unchanged value priorities of politics. For this purpose, a content analysis was conducted in which the values in the Schwartz Value Scale were used as analysis categories. In order to determine the prevailing value priorities in the 1950s to 2000s Turkish politics, the discourses of political actors reflected in the media were examined before the elections of 14 May 1950, 14 October 1973, 6 November 1983, 3 November 2002 and 12 June 2011. Thus, what are the expectations and values of political actors to convince electors, the changing and unchanging value priorities of politics and the value priorities of Turkish politics have been determined.As a result of the analyzes, it is detected that the political discourse in Turkey is fed from a common political popular culture and the choices are called with discourses which lean on similar values without winning/losing party difference. These basic values, which represent the common good of the ordinary political culture and which have political discursive priority, self-direction, benevolence, achievement, power and security. It is observed that the political discourse in Turkey is based on the high level values of self-enhancement and self-transcendence which are in the opposite poles and this opposition also feeds populist rhetoric.

Keywords: