The effect of macroeconomic indicators on voter behaviour in Turkey within the context of political marketing

Today, political parties affect the political attitudes and behaviours of voters by delivering their ideas and ideologies to more voters in a shorter time through political marketing channels. Voters are affected by many factors, and the most important among them is the economic factors that directly affect the lives of voters. The view that economic factors affect voter preference is called economic voting theory in the literature. According to this theory, voters evaluate the present and past periods of political power and vote for parties that benefit them the most and can overcome basic economic problems. The purpose of the current study is to determine the macroeconomic factors that are effective in voter preferences in Turkey by revealing the importance of voter preferences within the scope of political marketing. With the econometric model created in this context, the effects of macroeconomic factors on the vote rates of political parties were investigated using data from Turkey of the general elections held in between 1977 and 2019. ADF and Carrion-i-Silvestre unit root tests with structural breaks were first used in the study to determine the degree of stationarity of the variables. The Maki cointegration test and ARDL bounds test were used under multiple structural breaks to determine the cointegration and the short and long term relationships between the variables. Finally, Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test was used to reveal the causality relationship between the variables. As a result of the study, the effect of per capita gross domestic product on the vote rate in the long run was found to be positive, while the effect of inflation and unemployment rate was found to be negative. In addition, it was determined that an increase in interest rates negatively affects the voting rate in the short term. Finally, as a result of the causality test, it was determined that there is a one-way causality relationship from gross domestic product per capita, unemployment and inflation to the vote rate, while it was found that there is no causality relationship between the interest rate and the voting rate. As a result, it was determined in the current study that voters in Turkey are affected by macroeconomic factors and shape their political attitudes and behaviours accordingly.