Socio-political factors influencing elector preferences (Between 1946-2007)

Electorattitude is a multi-dimensional topic. Analyzing the attitudes of electors in today's democratic political systems has critical importance. There are such a lot of factors influencing elector preferences as economical, political, sociological and psychological. In line with these parameters, "Socio-political factors influencing elector preferences" have became significant. In this thesis, social and cultural factors influencing party preferences of Turkish electors in the process from Turkish Republic's transition to multi-party system to the elections held on 22nd July 2007 have been emphasized. The attitudes of electors in general elections and by which factors they are influenced have been evaluated utilizing series of academic and scientific researches. With the assumption of cultural factors are at least as important as social factors in elector preferences, the fact of political culture has been tried to be associated with elector preferences and this study includes the dominant aspects of Turkish political culture. In this study, it is aimed at determining the socio-political factors that have possible influence on the electoral voting decision rather than the characteristics of the political parties' actions. KeyWords: Vote, voterbehavior, Socio-politicalfactors.