Economic evaluations vs. ideology: Diagnosing the sources of electoral change in Turkey, 2002–2011

Turkish elections reflect two competing influences. One concerns a long-term increasingly conservative ideological orientation; the other, more short-term pragmatic evaluations primarily on the economic policy front. This article uses three nationwide representative surveys from 2002, 2007 and 2011 to assess the relative merits of these competing hypotheses. The findings indicate that the critical election of 2002 is not shaped by economic performance evaluations but rather by indicators of ideology at large and left–right ideology in particular. The influence of ideology appears to rise from 2002 to 2007 and 2011. Economic performance evaluations increase in salience from 2002 to 2007 but seem to have somewhat lost their power for 2011. Implications of these findings for the Turkish party system and further research questions are discussed in the concluding section.

► We build comparable models to investigate support for incumbents in the last three general elections in Turkey.
► We test the short-run economic voting as well as the longer-run ideology influences upon voting decision.
► We trace changes in these influences over time and evaluate their implications for the Turkish party system.