Conventional vs nonconventional forms of political participation: Motivations behind political participation of youth in Turkey

This study examines the young people's motivations behind political participation in Turkey. The basic aim is to study and analyze the different forms of political participation; conventional forms and nonconventional forms of political participation, and see if there is any similarities or differences among the young members of these two modes of political participation. The research question is developed as "What are the differences of basic motivations of the young people who are the members of political parties' youth branches and members of civil society organizations in Turkey?" I assume that there are seven basic motivations for young people to participate in political parties and civil society in Turkey namely citizenship, social capital, personal interests, family, social media, party identity/leader and social environment, and their importance changes in these two cases. I stated seven hypothesis based on these motivations, and evaluate their validity with the field research. The universe of the study is set as the members of youth branches of AK Party and CHP, and GoFor. I decided my sample to cover 10 members from each organization, and these members are selected from the executive members. The content is scanned and analyzed via MaxQDA 2018 software. Based field research on motivations of youth members of political parties, and GoFor, I find that party identity is the leading motivation for the young members of AK Party, while it is the personal interest in the case of CHP, and GoFor. For political parties, social capital seems to be the least chosen motivation, while it is the social environment in the case of GoFor.