It is believed that the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey in 2002 brought a renewal of foreign and domestic policy, which is associated with a number of successes in the development of the country and strengthening its international image. Innovations in Turkey's economic strategy are also noted. But an indicator of the real depth of the changes that have taken place could be considered overcoming such an important trend in the economic policy of the Republic of Turkey, which, starting from the second half of the 20th century, became pronounced populism, which turned out to be the result of the transition to a multi-party system and the associated acute inter-party struggle " on the1. Only in this case, the processes of macroeconomic stabilization could become irreversible, and economic growth could become truly sustainable. That is why the question of how innovative the economic policy of the ruling party really is in terms of breaking the continuity of the populist tradition is so relevant. Keywords: populism, economic risks, socially oriented market economy, social policy, social assistance, selective nature of social assistance. The economic populism of the AKP's predecessor parties made itself felt loudly through budget deficits, increased domestic and foreign borrowing by the state, and finally high inflation, which was the result of governments ' wasteful efforts to win over the electorate. It should be clarified that the author proceeds from the definition of populism proposed by R. Dornbusch and S. Edwards in the work "Macroeconomics of populism in Latin America", understanding it as focusing the government's attention on accelerating growth and income redistribution, ignoring the risks of inflation, financial deficit, and others [Dornbusch and Edwards, 1991, p. 9]. As for the period of AKP rule, a significant part of it occurred during the years of implementation of stabilization loan agreements with the IMF. Due to this ... Read more