https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9526-7554
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ABSTRACT
This paper examines party system polarization over 19 general elections in Turkey from1950 to 2018. Using data on party policies from the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), we show that, contrary to the common view, party system polarization is not a persistent feature of Turkish politics. We also find that party system polarization on the left-right continuum reflects party differences primarily on social rather than economic or European integration issues. Finally, our results demonstrate that the military interventions in 1960 and 1980 reduced party system polarization in subsequent elections, even when controlling for other determinants of polarization. These findings have important implications for debates on party politics, military rule, and the prospects of democratic governance in developing democracies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Özbudun, ‘The Turkish Party’; Sayarı, ‘The Changing Party System’; Somer, ‘Turkey.’
2 Arslantaş and Arslantaş, ‘Keeping Power’; Özbudun, Party Politics; Somer, ‘Turkey.’
3 Ibid., ‘The Turkish Party,’ and Party Politics.
4 Volkens et al., ‘Manifesto Project Dataset.’
5 Linz and Stepan, The Breakdown; Sani and Sartori, ‘Polarization,’ 337; Sartori, Parties and Party Systems.
6 Alesina and Drazen, ‘Why are Stabilizations Delayed?’; Indridason, ‘Coalition Formation and Polarisation’; Jones, ‘Party Polarization.’
7 Powell, Contemporary Democracies; Warwick, Government Survival; Maoz and Somer-Topcu, ‘Political Polarization.’
8 Frye, Building States.
9 Enyedi, ‘Populist Polarization’; Handlin, ‘The Logic’; Mainwaring and Pérez-Linán, ‘Latin American Democratization’; McCoy, Rahman, and Somer, ‘Polarization’; McCoy and Somer, ‘Overcoming Polarization’; Nugent, After Repression; Somer, ‘Turkey’; LeBas, ‘Can Polarization Be Positive?’
10 Dalton, ‘The Quantity’; Lachat, ‘The Impact’; Singer, ‘Elite Polarization.’
11 Hetherington, ‘Resurgent,’; Lupu, ‘Party Polarization.’
12 Ibid., ‘Resurgent,’; Moral, ‘The Passive-Aggressive Voter.’
13 Dalton, ‘The Quantity’; Hellwig, Mikulska, and Gezgor, ‘Perceptions’; Moral, ‘The Bipolar Voter.’
14 Abramowitz, The Disappearing Center; Baumer and Gold, Parties.
15 Wang, ‘The Effects.’
16 Pardos-Prado and Dinas, ‘Systemic Polarisation,’ 263.
17 Esmer, ‘Economic Crisis.’
18 Arslantaş and Arslantaş, ‘Keeping Power’; Özbudun, ‘Changes’, and Party Politics, 88–90; Söyler, The Turkish, 170.
19 Pardos-Prado and Dinas, ‘Systemic Polarisation,’ 769; Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope, Culture War; Hetherington, ‘Putting Polarization in Perspective’; Lauka, McCoy, and Firat, ‘Mass Partisan.’
20 Esmer, ‘Economic Crisis.’
21 Dalton, ‘The Quantity.’
22 Ibid., and Sartori, Parties and Party Systems.
23 Adams, Merrill, and Grofman, A Unified Theory; Boix, ‘The Emergence’; Cox, ‘Centripetal.’
24 Cox, ‘Centripetal’; Dow, ‘A Comparative’; Dow, ‘Party System’; Matakos, Troumpounis, and Xefteris, ‘Electoral Rule.’
25 Andrews and Money, ‘The Spatial Structure’; Cox, ‘Centripetal’; Merrill and Adams, ‘Centrifugal.’ Party efforts to avoid being ‘squeezed’ in the center of more fractionalized party systems, however, are often checked by party motivation to remain acceptable for coalition or minority governments. See Curini and Hino, ‘Missing Links,’ and Dow, ‘Party System.’
26 Lipset and Rokkan, ‘Cleavage Structures.’
27 Boix, ‘The Emergence,’; Zielinski, ‘Translating.’
28 Developing democracies are characterized by low levels of institutionalization of democratic institutions. See Levitsky and Murillo, ‘Variation,’ and O’Donnell, ‘Illusions.’
29 Handlin, ‘The Logic,’ 75; Laebens and Öztürk, ‘Partisanship,’ 251.
30 Curini and Hino, ‘Missing Links.’
31 Singer, ‘Elite Polarization,’ 182; Coppedge, ‘The Dynamic’; Mainwaring and Pérez-Linán, ‘Latin American Democratization.’
32 Pardos-Prado and Dinas, ‘Systemic Polarisation,’ 779.
33 Ibid., ‘Elite Polarization,’ 182.
34 Curini and Hino, ‘Missing Links,’ 469; Kitschelt, ‘The Formation’; Lupu and Riedl, ‘Political Parties.’
35 Lupu and Riedl, ‘Political Parties,’ 1342.
36 Ibid.; Singer, ‘Elite Polarization’; Svolik, ‘Learning.’
37 Dalton and McAllister, ‘Random Walk,’ 770.
38 Schattschneider, Party Government.
39 Abramowitz, The Disappearing Center; Lupu, ‘Party Polarization.’
40 Bunce and Csanádi, ‘Uncertainty,’; Lupu and Riedl, ‘Political Parties.’
41 Haggard and Kaufman, ‘Democratization,’ 133.
42 Hagopian, ‘Parties and Voters’; Levitsky and Murillo, ‘Variation’; Schmitter and Karl, ‘What Democracy Is.’
43 Another 30 percent are due to an incumbent turnover, seven percent – civil wars, and two percent – popular uprising. See Svolik, ‘Which Democracies,’ 730.
44 Geddes, Frantz, and Wright, ‘Military Rule,’; Poe, Tate, and Keith, ‘Repression.’
45 Munck and Bosworth, ‘Patterns,’; Sigelman and Yough, ‘Left-Right.’
46 Nugent, After Repression; Wikham, ‘The Path.’
47 Zürcher, Turkey, 248.
48 Ibid., 281.
49 Volkens et al., ‘Manifesto Project Dataset.’ See also Budge et al., Mapping, and Klingemann et al., Mapping. The CMP project is also known by its more recent name ‘Manifesto Research and Political Representation’ (MARPOR). The data is available online: http://manifesto-project.wzb.eu.
50 For advantages and disadvantages of these data, see Bakker and Hobolt, ‘Measuring’; Budge and Meyer, ‘Understanding’; and Marks et al., ‘Crossvalidating.’
51 Bakker and Hobolt, ‘Measuring’; Budge et al., Mapping; Marks et al., ‘Crossvalidating.’
52 Budge, Robertson, and Hearl, Ideology; Budge et al., Mapping; Budge and Meyer, ‘Understanding’; Laver and Garry, ‘Estimating.’
53 Ibid., Ideology; Budge et al., Mapping.
54 Volkens et al., ‘Manifesto Project Dataset,’ 29. For detailed explanation and justification of this approach, see Laver and Budge, ‘Measuring,’ and Budge and Meyer, ‘Understanding.’
55 Budge and Meyer, ‘Understanding,’ 101.
56 Bakker and Hobolt, ‘Measuring,’; Dalton, Farrell, and McAllister, Political Parties.
57 Hix, ‘Dimensions’; Hooghe, Marks, and Wilson, ‘Does Left/Right?’; Kitschelt, The Transformation; Marks et al., ‘Crossvalidating.’
58 Fuchs and Klingemann, ‘The Left-Right Schema’; Klingemann, Hofferbert, and Budge, Parties; Huber and Inglehart, ‘Expert.’
59 Dalton, Farrell, and McAllister, Political Parties; Mair, ‘Left-Right.’
60 Çarkoğlu, ‘The Nature’; Esmer, ‘At the Ballot’; Kalaycioğlu, ‘Elections.’
61 Bakker and Hobolt, ‘Measuring,’ 38.
62 ‘GAL’ refers to green, alternative, or libertarian, while ‘TAN’ – traditionalist, authoritarian, or nationalist party statements.
63 Aaskoven, ‘Do Fiscal Rules?’; Han, ‘Income Inequality’; Matakos, Troumpounis, and Xefteris, ‘Electoral Rule’; Wang, ‘The Effects.’
64 Dalton, ‘The Quantity,’ 906.
65 The original left-right scale in the CMP data is from -100(left) to +100(right).
66 Detailed information for each election is available in the Appendix.
67 Appendix is available in the on-line publication. Interested readers may also contact the corresponding author for a copy of the Appendix.
68 Wooldridge, Introductory Econometrics.
69 Ibid., 387.
70 For data measuring military rule, see Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, ‘Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited’; Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, ‘Autocratic Breakdown’; and Hadenius and Teorell, ‘Pathways.’ In 1973, 1997, and 2007, the military threatened to intervene but did not install military rule in Turkey, while the 2016 military coup attempt failed.
71 Cox, ‘Centripetal’; Dow, ‘A Comparative’; Dow, ‘Party System.’
72 Dow, ‘Party System,: and Matakos, Troumpounis, and Xefteris, ‘Electoral Rule.’
73 Gallagher, ‘Proportionality.’ Data on party votes obtained from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK).
74 Laakso and Taagepera, ‘Effective.’
75 Andrews and Money, ‘The Spatial Structure’; Cox, ‘Centripetal’; Merrill and Adams, ‘Centrifugal’; Curini and Hino, ‘Missing Links’; and Dow, ‘Party System.’
76 Aaskoven, ‘Do Fiscal Rules.’
77 Data are from the World Bank. See the Appendix for further details.
78 Curini and Hino, ‘Missing Links’; Esmer, ‘Economic Crisis’; Laebens and Öztürk, ‘Partisanship.’
79 Özbudun, Party Politics, 87.
80 See also Laebens and Öztürk, ‘Partisanship,’; Somer, ‘Turkey.’
81 Karpat, Studies, and Zürcher, Turkey.
82 For individual party left-right movements, see the Appendix.
83 Hix, ‘Dimensions,’; Hooghe, Marks, and Wilson, ‘Does Left/Right?’
84 Budge, Robertson, and Hearl, Ideology; Budge et al., Mapping; Budge and Meyer, ‘Understanding’; Laver and Garry, ‘Estimating.’
85 Özbudun, Party Politics, 93; Sayari, ‘Towards’; Somer, ‘Turkey’.
86 Munck and Bosworth, ‘Patterns.’
87 Nugent, After Repression.
88 Mainwaring and Pérez-Linán, ‘Latin American Democratization,’; Payne, ‘Party Systems.’
89 Pardos-Prado and Dinas, ‘Systemic Polarisation,’ 769; Lauka, McCoy, and Firat, ‘Mass Partisan.’
90 Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope, Culture War; Hetherington, ‘Putting Polarization in Perspective’; Kalaycioğlu, ‘Elections.’
91 Wagner, ‘Affective Polarization.’
92 Lauka, McCoy, and Firat, ‘Mass Partisan.’
93 Ezrow, Tavits, and Homola, ‘Voter Polarization.’
94 Haggard and Kaufman, ‘Democratization,’ 126.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Hatice Mete-Dokucu
Hatice Mete-Dokucu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Bilkent University, where she also received her master’s degree. Her research interests include party politics, public opinion, and comparative political behavior.
Aida Just
Aida Just is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Bilkent University. Her research interests focus on comparative public opinion and behavior, particularly with respect to the issues of democratic representation, legitimacy, and political engagement.