Political Psychology of Turkish Political Behavior

The primary motivation for this book is to focus on something crucial that is missing in Turkish political science: well-founded theories on the Turkish voter and empiricism in scholarly research. Given the absence of such theories, one could ask what then the best model is for explaining a Turkish citizen’s vote choice and political behaviour, and what schools of thought Turkish political science has. Unfortunately, it is not possible to offer a satisfactory response to either question at this point, and among the clear deficiencies in the current literature the primary one is the lack of a robust model explaining how Turkish citizens form their political attitudes, engage in political participation, or cast their votes. With these important questions in mind, this book aims to generate an interest in the theoretical and methodological tools that one can employ to conduct research contributing to the needs of the literature, particularly in political behaviour and political psychology. This book expands our understanding about the processes and the mechanisms of Turkish political behaviour, and contributes to the foundations of theory building in the literature.

This book was published as a special issue of Turkish Studies.

Cengiz Erisen (PhD, Stony Brook University) is an associate professor of political science at TOBB University of Economics and Technology. His research interests include comparative political behaviour, political psychology, public opinion analysis, and quantitative methods. He has published papers in Political Psychology, Journal of Common Market Studies, Political Research Quarterly, American Politics Research, and Turkish Politics in addition to a number of book chapters.