The Impact of Party Identification and Socially Supplied Disagreement on Electoral Choices in Turkey

Abstract

The relative impacts of social influence and political party affiliation on electoral choices depend on the maturity of the political party system. In established democracies political party affiliation has a decisive impact on electoral choices whereas in democratizing countries political discussion influences over-time volatility in electoral outcomes. This paper investigates the significance of both factors on individual attitudes toward political candidates in Turkey. Findings from an experiment where social disagreement and candidate political party affiliation are manipulated indicate that young voters are sensitive to both partisan cues and socially supplied disagreement in forming and changing their attitudes toward political candidates. The results also show that, unlike most developing countries with weak parties, party label in Turkey is an important heuristic for making electoral choices. However, social disagreement can make political attitudes unstable. The findings suggest that Turkey presents us with a case in between the developed country voters' iron clad partisan attachment and the developing country voters' high susceptibility to socially communicated persuasive messages.

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CORRIGENDUM

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Kerem Ozan Kalkan, Emre Erdogan, and Cengiz Erisen whose help contributed greatly to the data collection effort. I would also like to thank Basak Ince, Ioannis Grigoriadis, Zeki Sarigil, and Dilek Cindoglu for allowing me to recruit participants for the study in their undergraduate classes. I truly appreciate the comments from the participants at the TOBB ETU Workshop on Turkish Political Behavior and Political Psychology, in particular Gizem Arikan, Ekrem Karakoc, and the anonymous reviewers, which made this article a better one.

Notes

This article was originally published with errors. This version http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2013.786898).

Lau and Redlawsk, “Advantages and Disadvantages,” 951–71.

Baker, Ames, and Renno, “Social Context and Campaign Volatility,” 382–99.

Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague, Political Disagreement.

Mutz, “Cross-Cutting Social Networks,” 111–26; Mutz, “Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks,” 838–55.

Huckfeldt and Sprague, Citizens, Politics, and Social Communication. Huckfeldt and his colleagues have shown in numerous other studies that informal networks of important matters discussion and of political matters discussion overlap to a large extent. Hence, in this article, the terms social network and political discussion network are used interchangeably.

Campbell et al., American Voter; Rahn, “Role of Partisan Stereotypes,” 472–96; Sears et al., “Self-Interest Versus Symbolic Politics,” 670–84.

Zaller, Nature and Origins.

Lau and Redlawsk, “Advantages and Disadvantages”; Lodge and Hamill, “Partisan Schema,” 505–19.

Ibid.

Zaller, “Floating Voters in US Presidential Elections, 1948–2000.”

Blais, “How Many Voters?” 801–3.

Converse, “Of Time and Partisan Stability,” 139–71.

Lawson and McCann, “Television Coverage, Media Effects,” 1–30.

Popkin, The Reasoning Voter; Sniderman, “Taking Sides.”

Gelman and King, “Why Are American Election?” 409–51.

Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate.

Skidmore, ed., Television, Politics, and the Transition.

Baker, Ames, and Renno, “Social Context and Campaign Volatility.”

Ibid.

Huckfeldt and Sprague, Citizens, Politics, and Social Communication.

Granovetter, “Strength of Weak Ties,” 1360–80; Granovetter, “Strength of Weak Ties,” 201–33.

Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee, Voting; Huckfeldt, “Political Loyalties and Social Class,” 399–417; Huckfeldt, Politics in Context; Huckfeldt and Sprague, “Networks in Context,” 1197–216; Huckfeldt, Plutzer, and Sprague, “Alternative Contexts of Political Behavior,” 365–81; Huckfeldt and Sprague, Citizens, Politics, and Social Communication; Huckfeldt et al., “Political Environments, Cohesive Social Groups,” 1025–54; Katz and Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet, People's Choice; Putnam, ”Political Attitudes,” 640–54;  Weatherford, “Interpersonal Networks and Political Behavior,” 117–43.

Mutz and Mondak, “Workplace as a Context,” 140–55; Mutz, “Cross-Cutting Social Networks,” 111–26; Mutz, “Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks,” 838–55; Mutz, Hearing the Other Side.

Lake and Huckfeldt, “Social Networks, Social Capital,” 567–84; McClurg, “Social Networks and Political Participation,” 449–64; McClurg, “Electoral Relevance of Political Talk,” 737–54.

Huckfeld, “Social Communication of Political Expertise,” 425–38; Huckfeldt, Ikeda, and Pappi, “Patterns of Disagreement,” 497–514.

Huckfeldt, Morehouse, and Osborn, “Disagreement, Ambivalence, and Engagement,” 65–96; Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague, Political Disagreement; Huckfeldt and Mendez, “Moths, Flames, and Political Engagement,” 83–96.

Barabas, “How Deliberation Affects Policy Opinions,” 687–701; Mutz, “Cross-Cutting Social Networks,” 111–26; Mutz, “Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks,” 838–55.

Lake and Huckfeldt, “Social Networks, Social Capital,” 567–84; McClurg, “Social Networks and Political Participation,” 449–64; McClurg, “Electoral Relevance of Political Talk,” 737–54; Mutz, “Cross-Cutting Social Networks,” 111–26; Mutz, “Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks,” 838–55.

Klofstad, Sokhey, and McClurg, “Disagreeing about Disagreement.”

Huckfeld, “Social Communication of Political Expertise,” 425–38; Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague, Political Disagreement; Huckfeldt and Mendez, “Moths, Flames, and Political Engagement.”

Festinger, Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.

Howard, “Electoral Consequences of Ambivalence,” 915–29; Zaller, Nature and Origins; Mutz, “Cross-Cutting Social Networks,” 111–26; Mutz, “Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks,” 838–55; Visser and Mirabile, “Attitudes in the Social Context,” 779–95.

Huckfeldt and Mendez, “Moths, Flames, and Political Engagement.”

Erisen and Erisen, “Effect of Social Networks”; Visser and Mirabile, “Attitudes in the Social Context.”

Erisen and Erisen, “Effect of Social Networks.”

Redlawsk, “Hot Cognition or Cool Consideration?”, 1021–44.

Mutz, “Cross-Cutting Social Networks,” 111–26; Mutz, “Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks,” 838–55.

Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet, People's Choice.

Mutz, “Cross-Cutting Social Networks,” 111–26; Mutz, “Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks,” 838–55; Lake and Huckfeldt, “Social Networks, Social Capital,” 567–84; McClurg, “Social Networks and Political Participation,” 449–64; McClurg, “Electoral Relevance of Political Talk,” 737–54.

Please refer to the “Methods in Political Psychology” article in this issue for a discussion on the use of experiments in political psychology.

Erisen, Erisen, and Redlawsk, “Social Consequences of Incongruency.”

Supplemental materials for the candidate and potential contact biographies and experimental procedure are available upon request from the author.

Druckman and Kam, “Students as Experimental Participants.” Unless the causal link between the similarity of the party affiliation and attitudes toward the candidate changes in samples with different political party affiliation composition, sample characteristics should not bias the results. This is also true for other sample characteristics.

The effect size for the party affiliation treatment is medium to high (Cohen's f is 0.265).

The treatment's effect size is medium to high (Cohen's f = 0.29).