This book explores the roots of the decline of democracy and the rise of hegemonic parties in Turkey, by comparing the Justice and Development Party (AKP) with other comparable cases throughout the world.Offering a novel analysis in the rise of hegemonic parties, this book incorporates the analysis of state-society relations and institutionalist approaches. A hegemonic party is a single political party that dominates the scene in multi-party elections for extended periods of time. Focusing on the cases of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Russia and other countries through the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe, the book proves that hegemony building is possible through the combination of societal and institutional factors at the individual, local, and national levels. Multilingual comparative content analysis, rigorous statistical tests, and in-depth elite-level interviews support this theory, based on an extensive fieldwork analysis.Analysing contemporary as well as historical cases of hegemonic parties, the volume will be of interest to researchers and students in a broad range of areas including democratization, political parties and Turkish politics.