Discussing women's representation in local politics in Turkey: The case of female mayorship

The purpose of this article is to explicate women's political representation in female mayorship in Turkey's local politics on the basis of the empirical data gathered from in-depth interviews with female mayors elected in 2004 and 2009 local elections. The objective is to construe women's representation in local politics with the concern that due to the "positional power" of a female mayor, women's representation in a municipality is not congenial to women's representation in the parliament. The contention of the article is that women's representation in female mayorship can be explicated by symbolic, accessible, and just representation. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.