https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6364-4426
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ABSTRACT
This study examines patterns of voter defection from Turkey’s incumbent AKP amid major economic and democratic decline. As in other electoral autocracies, defectors constitute a small but politically significant group in Turkey, where the opposition’s ability to secure a transition from authoritarianism depends on reducing the incumbent’s vote share. Based on survey data gathered in November 2021 and February 2022, we find that while the high level of partizanship among AKP voters hinders defection, persistent economic and democratic decline still reduces incumbent support. We also found that defections are higher outside of the lowest income group. Our findings have important implications for opposition strategies in electoral autocracies. Directing public debate away from identity issues to economic and democratic problems increases the likelihood of defection. In addition, offering voters clear superior alternatives decreases the cost of uncertainty that comes with change and increases the likelihood of defection.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Sides et al. “The Bitter End.”
2 Weber, “Negative voting”; Smidt. “Polarization and the Decline.”
3 Mayer, “How Negative Partisanship.”
4 Scott, “Tell Us.”
5 Michel, “Leader Effects.”
6 Boyd, “Presidential Elections”; Harris “Not Swinging Together,” 2.
7 Kang, “Presidential Pork.”
8 Harris, “Not Swinging Together,” 1–2.
9 Cakir, “Polarized Partisanship”; Mummolo et al., “The Limits.”
10 Forgette et al., “Voting for the Person.”
11 Harris, “Not Swinging Together,” 4.
12 Vandenbroek, “Lost Our Lease,” 1047.
13 Beck, “Encouraging Political Defection,” 311.
14 Hale and Colton, “Who Defects,” 323–4.
15 Ibid, 323.
16 Ibid.
17 Harris, “Not Swinging Together”; Vandenbroek, “Lost our Lease”; Beck, “Encouraging Political Defection.”
18 Kalaycıoğlu, “Kulturkampf”; Laebens and Öztürk, “Partisanship.”
19 Çınar, “Local Determinants.”
20 The National Security Council meeting on 28 February 1997 announced a series of measures to stop the Islamic threat and it was finally followed by the resignation of Prime Minister and Refah Party leader Necmetttin Erbakan, leading to the dissolution of his coalition government.
21 Hurriyet, “Erdoğan.”
22 Laebens and Öztürk, “Partisanship.”
23 Çınar, “The Electoral Success.”
24 Gümüsçü and Sert, “The March 2009.”
25 Çınar, “Local Determinants.”
26 “With the help of the people we brought down those who looked down upon the people,” Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı, May 28, 2015.
27 Kalaycıoğlu, “Kulturkampf,” 18.
28 Somer, “The Slippery Slope.”
29 Çelik and Balta, “Explaining.”
30 Kalaycıoğlu, “Justice and Development.”
31 Demiralp, “The Rise of Islamic Capital.”
32 Çarkoğlu, “Ideology”; Aytaç “Economic Voting”; Başlevent and Kirmanoğlu, “Economic Voting in Turkey”; Başlevent, Kirmanoğlu and Şenatalar, “Empirical Investigation”; Gidengil and Karakoç, “Which Matters More?”
33 In “Justice and Development,” Kalaycıoğlu notes that the strongest determinants of voter preferences in Turkey include not only partizanship, ideological splits, and religiosity but also satisfaction with economic performance. Similarly, in “Ideology,” Çarkoğlu agrees that the voters’ choice of AKP has depended on two influences: one is primarily partizanship while the other is based on evaluations of government performance, especially economic.
34 Öniş, “The Triumph.”
35 Ibid.
36 Toros, “Social indicators”; Eder, “Deepening.”
37 Demiralp, “Making Winners,” 95–6; Eder, “Deepening Neoliberalisation,” 209; Karaman, “Urban Neoliberalism,” 3423; Kuyucu and Ünsal, “Urban Transformation,” 1480–1, 1484–5.
38 Buğra, Class, Culture, and State, 523; Demiralp, “The Rise of Islamic Capital,” 318.
39 Demiralp and Demiralp, “The State,” 91.
40 Demiralp, “Making Winners.”
41 Demiralp, Demiralp and Gümüş, “The State,” 96.
42 Demiralp and Demiralp. “The Erosion,” 61–2.
43 What needed to be done at this stage was to revert to a less supportive policy stance and defend the currency with rate hikes. However, an important side effect of a rate hike is an economic slowdown. The government therefore tried instead to defend the value of TL by selling central bank reserves to maintain its low interest rate policies for longer without causing excessive TL depreciation. However, the downside of this was rapid depletion of these reserves. By providing immediate relief, such accommodative policies hide the signs of a declining economy. Cheap credit stimulates spending and increases production. However, the long-run consequences of such policies, in the absence of investment in innovative technologies and education, are further inflation, currency depreciation, reduced purchasing power, and an inevitable economic slowdown.
44 Kılıç, “Türkiye Nüfusunun Yaklaşık.”
45 Calculations made by Ümit Özlale using the TUİK Türkiye Hane Halkı İşgücü Araştırması dataset and shared by authors.
46 Sözen, “Competition.”
47 V-Dem, https://www.v-dem.net/.
48 Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads.”
49 Özen, “An Unfinished Grassroots Populism”; Yardımcı-Geyikci “Gezi Park Protests.”
50 Selcuk and Hekimci “The Rise.”
51 Bashirov and Lancaster, “End of Moderation.”
52 Aytaç and Elçi, “Populism in Turkey.”
53 Çalışkan, “Toward.”
54 “Freedom in the World 2018, Turkey,” Freedom House Report.
55 Sözen, “Competition,” 229.
56 Ibid.
57 Bianet, “Millet İttifakı.”
58 Aytaç, et al. “Partisanship, Elite Messages.”
59 Downs, An Economic Theory; Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections; Eulau and Beck, Economic Conditions; Anderson, “Economic Voting”; Paldam, “How Robust.”
60 Lewis-Beck, “Economics and Elections.”
61 Anderson, “Economic Voting,” 278; Paldam, “How Robust.”
62 Çarkoğlu and Kalaycıoğlu, Elections, 221.
63 Ibid, 185–6.
64 Aytaç, “The Economic Vote,” 123.
65 Aytaç argues that the center-periphery cleavage is cultural and suggests that economic voting provides an alternative to voting theories based on center-periphery (cultural) cleavages. We find that center-periphery cleavages are both cultural and economic. Thus, economic voting does not truly contradict center-periphery theory. Aytaç, “Economic Voting,” 2.
66 In “Who Defects,” 333, Hale and Calton suggest that youth, who have less commitment to a particular party, and less vulnerable segments of the population defect more quickly. Conversely, older people, who are more resistant to change, and more vulnerable groups like women, immigrants, and state employees are often the last to defect as they are more dependent on benefits from the ruling party.
67 Balta and Ete, “Türkiye’de Demokrasi,” 14–5.
68 Mounk, “The Undemocratic Dilemma.”
69 Hale and Colton, “Who Defects”, 325
70 Anderson, “Economic Voting,” 284.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Evren Balta
Evren Balta holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate Center, CUNY (2007), an MIA from Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs (2001), and an MA in Sociology from Middle East Technical University (1999). She has published her research in numerous journals, including Party Politics, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sociology, and Gender Place & Culture. She is the author of Politics of the Future (with Fuat Keyman, Ayrinti Publications, 2022), The American Passport in Turkey: National Citizenship in the Age of Transnationalism (with O. Altan-Olcay, UPenn, 2020), Age of Uneasiness (İletisim Publications, 2019), and Global Security Complex (İletisim Publications, 2012). She is the editor of Neighbors with Suspicion: Dynamics of Turkish-Russian Relations (with G. Ozcan and B. Besgul, İletisim Publications, 2017), Introduction to Global Politics (Iletisim Publications, 2014), and Military, State and Politics in Turkey (with I. Akca, Bilgi University Publications, 2010). Her book The American Passport received the American Sociological Association Global and Transnational Sociology section’s Best Book by an International Scholar Award.
Seda Demiralp
Seda Demiralp received her PhD in Political Science from the Department of Public Affairs at American University in Washington DC (2008). She is currently an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of International Relations at Işık University. Her research mainly focuses on democratization, state-business relations, and Middle East politics. Some of her recent work also considers representation of femininity and masculinity in Middle Eastern literature. Her work has been published in various journals, including Comparative Politics, Third World Quarterly, Middle East Journal, Middle Eastern Studies, Arab Studies Quarterly, New Perspectives on Turkey, and Turkish Studies.
Selva Demiralp
Selva Demiralp received her PhD in Economics from the University of California, Davis in 2000. She worked for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System between 2000-2005. After joining Koç University in 2005, she was promoted to an associate professorship in 2008 and professorship in 2017. Since 2016, she has been the director of Koç University-TÜSİAD Economic Research Forum. She is the chair of Koç University-Yapı Kredi Economic Research. Dr. Demiralp’s research focuses on monetary and macroeconomic policy and applied econometrics. She has won highly competitive grants for her research on monetary policy, including the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship and TUBA (Turkish Academy of Science) Distinguished Young Scientist Award (GEBIP), as well as numerous grants from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). Demiralp’s research has been published in leading economic journals, including the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking and the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.