Determination of socio-economic development levels and comparison of vote distributions in local elections for Turkish provinces

In this study, economic and social development levels of provinces defined as Level-3 in Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics are determined based on 31 variables. The primary purpose of the study is to determine the basic factors underlying socioeconomic development by various statistical methods and compare it comparison on province to province basis. At the same time, according to the results of local elections, it is the other purpose of the study to compare the distribution of votes of the socio-economic development levels of the provinces. This study was done in order to estimate the development level of 81 provinces in Turkey. The variables used in the analysis has been taken from Turkey Statistical Institute (TSI) organization, Ministry of Education, Population and Citizenship Affairs General Directorate, Address Based Population Registration System, Recorder of Deeds, Development, and The Ministry of Health publications. Factor analysis was performed by using SPSS 23.0 package program and principal component analysis was applied for factor derivation method. As a result of factor analysis two factors named as ''economic development'' and ''social development indicators'' were obtained. According to the factor loadings, the order of social and economic development of the provinces were determined and comparison of their socioeconomic development levels with the distribution of votes in the local elections was made. Keywords: Socio-Economic Development Level, Factor Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Political Parties, Voting Rate