Türkiye`de seçmen oynaklığı

ABSTRACT ELECTORAL VOLATILITY IN TURKEY Yasushi Hazama Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Ömer Faruk Gençkaya March 2004 This thesis analyzes the persistent electoral volatility in Turkey in terms of party-system institutionalization mainly during the 1961-2002 period. In order to distinguish the different vote swings underlying Turkey's electoral volatility, this study divides electoral volatility into 1) cleavage-type volatilities based on social cleavages and 2) retrospective-type volatilities based on voter punishment of the incumbent. The two types of volatilities are analyzed in two separate regression models. The results show, first, that deep social cleavages used to increase electoral volatility but since the 1990s, they began to stabilize voting behavior. The party system in Turkey has thus been recently anchored into its major social cleavages. Second, electoral volatility as a whole nonetheless remained high because of a growing trend of retrospective voting. Low economic growth and high unemployment were the major reasons for this. In sum, the apparent instability in the party system stemmed not from representation but from government. Keywords: Turkey, electoral volatility, social cleavages, retrospective voting IV