Atlas / Comparisons / AKP vs Castroism
AKP and Castroism
Measured distance across six axes
Different families with real common ground. They agree within three points on AU, SC. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Justice and Development Party | Cuban Communism | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +04 | −09 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +08 | −01 | 9 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +08 | +09 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +07 | +09 | 2 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +06 | 00 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | −01 | +07 | 8 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Justice and Development Party · EC +04
Coded mildly market: privatisation and construction-led growth alongside very large social assistance and unorthodox rate policy.
- Documented act or statuteExtensive privatisation of state enterprises through the 2000s.
- Documented act or statuteInterest rates were cut during high inflation from 2021 on the president's stated doctrine.
Cuban Communism · EC −09
Coded −9: state ownership of nearly all production with limited private licences since 2011.
- Documented act or statuteAround 500 categories of self-employment were legalised from 2011 and expanded in 2021.
Justice and Development Party · CU +08
Coded +8: a religious-conservative reordering of education, public space and family policy.
- Documented act or statuteWithdrawal from the Istanbul Convention on violence against women in 2021.
- Documented act or statuteExpansion of imam-hatip religious schooling and lifting of the headscarf ban in public institutions.
Cuban Communism · CU −01
Coded −1: universal education and health alongside decades of persecution of homosexuals, later reversed.
- Documented act or statuteGay men were sent to UMAP labour camps in the 1960s; same-sex marriage was legalised by referendum in 2022.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
AKP
2001– · Turkey
Conservative religious identity, national sovereignty, and a strong presidency claiming direct popular mandate.
Castroism
1959– · Cuba
Anti-imperial national sovereignty plus socialist transformation, led by a guerrilla-derived party-state.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
Open in the atlas