Gender equality policies in Turkey’s opposition municipalities: factors that impact policy-making according to gender advocates

The article explores gender equality policy processes in Turkey’s opposition-controlled municipalities faced with a national government that has an anti-gender equality stance in an authoritarian populist context. Based on interview data and documentary review, we identify four factors that facilitate and hinder gender equality policies and argue that the interaction between political party ideology and mayors’ individual perceptions creates spaces for gender mainstreaming processes in which gender experts play a key role. Gender mainstreaming plays an enabling role by improving policy capacity, diffusing gender awareness and in some cases changing politicians’ perceptions of electoral prospects; however, adversarial inter-governmental interactions hinder transformative actions although the latter carry the potential for future politicisation in feminist terms.