Ideological linkages and party competition in the 2023 Turkish general elections

ABSTRACT

This article explores the dynamics of ideological party competition within the context of the 2023 Turkish elections. Focusing on the role and appeal of ideology, it provides insights into the changing landscape of ideological competition during this pivotal electoral period. The study examines whether ideology operates as a guiding principle for Turkish voters grappling with intricate economic and social issues. Despite acknowledging that economic concerns may not singularly determine ideological positions, the paper highlights the enduring significance of ideology in shaping perceptions. The transformative nature of the 2023 elections, marked by the emergence of new parties and electoral alliances, further underscores the relevance of ideology. Additionally, the article assesses the appeal of ideological competition by investigating voters who cannot position parties or themselves on the ideology scale. This analysis reveals that factors such as media consumption, education, gender, and political efficacy significantly influence the ideological appeal in the 2023 elections.

KEYWORDS:

• Party competition
• ideology
• elections
• Turkey

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at Bilkent Universityy’s Centennial Talks series in March 2024. I would like to thank participants at the talk for their feedback. I would also like to thank Ali Çarkoğlu and Lemi Baruh for access to the Turkish Election Study data as well as the SEEBBS editorial team and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2024.2354538.

Notes

1. For an example application, see: Esmer (2002).

2. HDP: Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi), MHP: Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi), İYİP: Good Party (İyi Parti)

3. Baruh and Çarkoğlu (2024) as well as Kocapınar and Kalaycıoğlu (2024) present further details about the fieldwork for the TES.

4. Due to the threat of being closed by the Constitutional Court, HDP’s politicians moved to another constitutive party of the People’s Democratic Congress, YSP: Party of the Greens and Left Future (Yeşil ve Sol Gelecek Partisi). However, the survey questions used in the study asked respondents about HDP rather than YSP due to the name recognition of the HDP as a politically relevant party. If questions about YSP were asked instead, in issues such as the placement of parties on an ideology scale, the number of respondents who fail to answer would increase artificially.

5. According to most recent Chapel Hill Expert Survey conducted in 2023, from the most left wing to the right order of parties on economic redistribution is: HDP (1,75), CHP (3,87), İYİP (5,37), MHP (5,71) and AKP (6,62). For gal-tan score, from most liberal to conservative, party order is: HDP (1,5), CHP (3,62), İYİP (5,87), AKP (9) and MHP (9,12).

6. The most recent manifesto coding for Turkish elections is based on 2018 general elections. The MARPOR ‘rile’ score order for parties from the most left-wing to the right is: CHP (−29,46), HDP (−26,4), İYİP (−14,9), AKP (−6,7), MHP (+9,3).

7. Average positions of party placements on the 11-point scale among those who responded to all party placements from left to right in TNES 2023 survey is: HDP: 1,53, CHP: 1,60, İYİP: 5,33, YRP: 7,46, MHP: 7,91, AKP: 8,73.

%41,6 of all respondents place AKP to the right of MHP while 16% place MHP to the right of AKP while %42,3 assign the same ideological position to these parties.

%27 assign HDP a more left-wing position than CHP, %20,2 assign a more left-wing position to CHP than HDP and the rest of the sample %52,76 assign both parties the same ideology score.

Additional information

Funding

This work was conducted as a part of a larger research project supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) [Project number: 121K206].

Notes on contributors

Kerem Yıldırım

Kerem Yıldırım is currently an assistant professor of political science at Bilkent University. He received his Ph. D. from Koç University in 2016. He previously taught at Kadir Has and Sabancı Universities in Istanbul. He was a postdoctoral associate in 2019-2021 at Duke University. His research interests include party-voter linkages, accountability, party competition and political communication. His publications appeared in journals such as Political Communication, Political Behavior, Democratization, International Journal of Press/Politics, Turkish Studies, South European Society and Politics, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. He worked on issues such as varieties of political linkages, clientelism, political competition and Turkish politics. His previous research has been published in journals such as Political Communication, Political Behavior, South European Society & Politics, and Democratization.