Modeling political performance of Islamist and Islamist-rooted parties in Turkey

Abstract

Turkish experience with Islamist and Islamist-rooted parties spanning nearly half a century is studied to understand the factors that caused their transformation and determined their political performance, both while in office and in opposition. A vote equation built, which takes into account all of the key factors mentioned in the economic voting literature, shows that during their rule such parties suffer much less due to strategic voting than other parties but they face a higher cost of ruling. Also, they are affected by the economy in a similar way or even more than other incumbent parties. Moderation in Islamist and Islamist-rooted parties generated through their participation in the parliament and governments, combined with center-right parties deserting their traditional anti-establishment positions, and getting tainted by corruption and incompetence led to massive vote transfers during the last decade from the latter to the former.

Keywords:

• Islamist parties
• moderation
• voter behavior
• economic voting
• Turkey

Acknowledgments

The contents and recommendations do not necessarily reflect Economic Research Forum's (ERFs) views. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the ERF held in Kuwait City, Kuwait, 3–5 March 2013; at the 3rd Biennial EconAnadolu Conference held in Eskişehir, Turkey, 19–21 June 2013; at an Economics Department seminar at Atılım University, Ankara, Turkey, 25 June 2013; and at the International Conference on Applied Business and Economics (ICABE) held in New York City, USA, 2–4 October 2013. I have benefited greatly from the comments I have received from the audiences at these meetings. Those provided by Abla Abdel-Latif, the discussant at the ERF meeting were especially valuable. I am grateful also to Dr Lyn Squire, Managing Editor of the Middle East Development Journal, and two anonymous reviewers of the journal for their suggestions which improved the paper substantially.

Notes

1. Ibrahim (2013), Göksel (2012), Gümüşçü (2012), Perekli (2012), Pupcenoks (2012), Rane (2012), and Torelli (2012) are some of the recent studies which investigate the lessons that can be drawn from the AKP example for other countries.

2. Ersel (2013), Göksel (2012), Gümüşçü (2012), Karakaya and Yıldırım, (2013), Yıldırım (2012), Perekli (2012), Pupcenoks (2012), Sorensen (2012), Sener 2012, Tepe (2012), Tezcür (2010, 2012), Torelli (2012), Türköne (2012), Atasoy (2011), Somer (2011), Eligür (2010), Hale and Özbudun (2010), Atasoy (2009), Grigoriadis (2009), Yavuz (2009), Cizre (2008), Ihsan Dagi (2008), Gunter and Hakan Yavuz (2007), and Yildirim, Inaç, and Özler (2007) are notable studies which discuss Islamist parties in Turkey and other countries, and their moderation, qualitatively and using descriptive statistics.

3. A field has developed over the last four decades or so, analyzing how voters vote, referred to as economic voting. Lewis-Beck and Paldam (2000) define it as ‘a field that mixes economics and political science and does so by means of econometrics.’ Detailed surveys of this literature are provided by that study: Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier (2000, 2007, 2008, 2013) and Akarca and Tansel (2006, 2007). The latter authors show that voter tendencies found for other countries in regard to incumbent parties also apply to the Turkish case.

4. Islamists existed in Turkey prior to 1970 but found it more pragmatic to participate in politics largely as part of a broader right-wing coalition represented by the DP in late 1940s and the 1950s, and by the AP in the 1960s. To some extent they also joined string of Nationalist parties, the Nation Party (MP) and the Republican Nation Party (CMP) in late 1940s and the 1950s, and the Republican Peasant's Nation Party (CKMP), the Nation Party (MP2) and the MHP in the 1960s. Until mid-1940s only the Republican People's Party (CHP) was allowed to exist, except during 1924–1925 and in 1930 when the Progressive Republican Party (TCF) and the Liberal Republican Party (SCF) were permitted for about six and three months, respectively.

5. This is not done in the paper's title, tables, and where variables are defined to emphasize the distinction, which is quite important.

6. Had the SP received a substantial vote share, with one Islamist party in opposition and another one in power, specifying a model would be difficult. Fortunately, that is not the case.

7. The MNP was banned even before it could enter any election.

8. The systematic difference in SPs vote in parliamentary and local administrations elections is due to strategic voting of the party's supporters, which will be explained in greater detail in subsection 3.2. The significant drop in the party's vote share in 2014 local election compared to local elections of 2004 and 2009, has to do with political realignment which will be discussed in Section 3.1.

9. In fact, if the 1977 local election, which was held only a few months after a parliamentary one, is set aside, 2004 was the first time this has happened.

10. Since 1946, three parties had the acronym DP. To avoid confusion, the first of these, the Democrat Party which existed in the 1950s will be referred to as the DP, and the second one, the Democratic Party which existed in the 1970s as the DP2, and Democrat Party which is still in existence and was named the DYP between 1984 and 2007, as DYP.

11. Akarca and Tansel (2007) show that a significant portion of the 21% RP vote in 1995 was protest vote against incumbent parties.

12. The center-left, hard-core Islamist, Turkish nationalist, and Kurdish nationalist parties get the remainder of the votes. These can be labeled as statist in the sense that they rely on the state, central or regional, to accomplish their goals in a top-down fashion.

13. The urbanization rate has increased from about 25% in 1950 to 65% in 2000 and 77% in 2011. Now 39% of Turkish population resides in a province other than the one in which they were born. This figure was 12% in 1950 and 28% in 2000.

14. For example, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current prime minister and the head of the AKP, served as metropolitan mayor of Istanbul, and Abdullah Gül, the current president, served as a cabinet member.

15. As explained by Akarca (2014) and will be touched upon in the next subsection, the small drop in the AKP's vote share between 2011 and 2014 is no more than what can be attributed to stronger strategic voting in local elections and the economy not being as good as in 2011.

16. That explains why the SP vote share in parliamentary elections is 1–2% while it is 4–5% in local administrations elections.

17. Votes cast for the independents are included in the variable because some leaders of the decaying right-wing parties ran as independent candidates in 2002 and 2007 elections to bypass the nationwide 10% nationwide threshold the political parties are required to exceed to be represented in the parliament. The ethnic Kurdish parties ran their candidates as independents in 2007 and 2011 elections also to avoid the threshold requirements. The votes received by such independent candidates are considered as if they were cast for their parties, and not for independents.

18. Since an Islamist party was not ruling at the time of the only by election in our sample, a separate variable is not included in the equation to measure extra strategic voting in such elections.

19. When entered in the third regression, the coefficient of S_3t . V_t–k implies a mere 3% drop in the votes of the AKP due to closing of the FP which is not different from zero significantly.

Additional information

Funding

This work was sponsored by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and has benefited from both financial and intellectual support.