Economic theory of democracy: An analysis for Turkey

There are two basic characters in political activities; political parties and electors. Elector behaviours should be analyzed very well in order for political parties to evaluate the electors? decision making process for the decisions and goals that have been taken by the political party during the political process. There are possible social and economic factors that guides these electors? behaviours. Whilst social factors may include factors such as culture, educational level, gender, etc... , economic factors may include factors such as inflation, unemployment, economic growth and real income of people. Analyzing these behaviours through macro-economic performance has been investigated by researchers starting from 1950?s. In most of these researches, which economic and social factors should be concerned by electors have been carefully analyzed. Famous public choice theorist Anthony Downs is one of the researchers who has worked the relationship between economics and politics in his book ?An Economic Theory of Democracy? which published in 1957. In Down?s Rational Hypothesis and the researches based on his point of view, electors, who votes in rational retrospective way and who place importance to their personal benefits, considers mostly labour force or inflation data in their comparison.In this research, we investigate the electors? behaviours and which economic and social parameters were being considered by electors in Turkey?s political process based on the Down?s point of view. Further, we conclude that electors vote according to short-term effects and show an irrational behaviours in some economical parameters corresponds to our limited data set content.