Understanding political attitudes of right wing voters in the post -2002 period: Beyond ideology versus pragmatism

This research aims to deepen and broaden our understanding of the political attitudes of right-wing voters, who are accepted to hold the key to Turkish politics due to their large numbers. While there is a wealth of quantitative macro-level analysis focused on identifying the political preferences and voting behaviour of Turkish voters in the post-2022 period, this research conducts in-depth interviews to understand the meaning-making processes of voters and to draw mental maps of right- wing voters. By this way, this research aims to throw light to how voters combine and interpret ideologies, values, collective memory, traditions, identities, emotions, and changing situational factors and create their own 'subjective political field'. The main argument of this research is that explaining political attitudes of right-wing voters with ideology versus pragmatism approach is highly superficial and inadequate. Going beyond this dichtomy, we try to identify how similar political, economic and cultural factors can strengthen or deter right-wing voting and how it can alienate voters based on voters' subjective political field.