National Elections in Turkey ─ People, Politics, and the Party System

Drawing on party election manifestos and campaign speeches, election data, and information on patron-client relations, the selection of candidates, media technologies, and local governance records, the author outlines patterns in national electoral behavior in Turkey from the first free and fair multiparty election in 1950 through 2011. He focuses on the behavior and interactions of parties--how they compete for votes and how the electorate orients itself within the political environment--as well as the interaction of institutions, agents, structures, culture, and other factors. He discusses approaches used in the past to study Turkish electoral behavior, including left/right terminology, the role of religion, the assumption that electoral behavior is a manifestation of a sociocultural gap between the center and periphery, and trends in political culture, then analyzes paradigms in electoral politics since 1950. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

F. Michael Wuthrich is assistant director of the Center for Global and International Studies at
the University of Kansas.