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Plus ça Change Plus C'est la MêmeChose: Consolidation of the AKP'sPredominance in the March 2014 LocalElections in TurkeyAli ÇarkoğluPublished online: 29 Jul 2014.

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Plus c�a Change Plus C’est la MemeChose: Consolidation of the AKP’sPredominance in the March 2014 LocalElections in TurkeyAli Carkoglu

The March 2014 local elections, following the Gezi Park protests and allegations ofgovernment corruption, registered the highest turnout of any Turkish election since 1994.

Despite strong resistance from conservative and liberal circles, the ruling Justice andDevelopment Party (AKP) held onto its constituency without losing much electoral

support. Its losses were shared among the opposition parties, none of which emerged in astrong position to challenge the AKP. The rise of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP),

which came second in five out of 12 regions, suggested a change in the intra-oppositiondynamics. The article presents a geographical and socio-economic analysis of the election,

finding a significant generation gap. It also examines the electoral impact of economicperceptions and allegations of governmental graft. The election outcome is expected to

shape both government and opposition strategies in the forthcoming presidential andparliamentary elections, potentially leading to another round of incumbent victories andincreasing societal polarisation.

Keywords: Local Elections; Predominant Party System; Economic Voting; AKP; CHP;

MHP; Kurdish Vote; Youth Vote

In the local elections of 30 March 2014, the conservative Justice and Development

Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [AKP]) with roots in the Turkish pro-Islamist

movement remained the largest party, winning around 45 per cent of the vote and

surpassing its main competitors by wide and comfortable margins. The AKP vote

share fell compared with the 2011 general election but increased compared with the

previous local election of 2009. In the run-up to the August 2014 presidential election,

with a general election also due in the following ten months, this strong electoral

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

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showing can be taken to be a consolidation of AKP’s electoral predominance. It poses apuzzle and related questions.

The puzzle stems from two major developments preceding the local elections.Despite mass anti-government demonstrations during the Gezi Park protest

movement and graft allegations that led prominent cabinet members to resign theirposts, the AKP’s electoral support contracted by only a few percentage points. While

the Gezi Park protests originated among liberal and left-leaning social groups with arelatively heavier representation of younger generations, the corruption charges

resulted from an elite clash within the conservative establishment that had backed theAKP government from the beginning of its tenure in 2002. Yet, neither of thesedevelopments appears to have mobilised a significant group of voters against the AKP.

Hence, plus c�a change, plus c’est la meme chose – or the more change in the electoralclimate, the more the AKP’s electoral support remains consolidated.

What factors, then, shape Turkish voters’ preferences providing this stablefoundation of electoral support for the AKP? Given these factors, can the AKP be

defeated? Can the opposition parties win sufficient electoral support to push the AKPout of executive office? Where does the AKP’s continuing support base come from?

These are some of the questions that this article aims to answer.

The Background: Gezi Protests, Graft Allegations, Economic Problems

Two major events preceding the March 2014 local elections make them a historically

peculiar case, creating the puzzle outlined above. First in May–June 2013 came theGezi Park protests. Initially an isolated neighbourhood protest in central Istanbul,this turned quickly into a massive movement involving millions all over the country.1

The AKP leadership was quick to realise the inherent threat of these protests for theapproaching local elections and adopted a non-accommodating reactionary strategy

that inevitably polarised the electorate. The second major event occurred in December2013 with graft allegations concerning important AKP cabinet members. The graft

scandal necessitated a late December cabinet reshuffle, effectively ousting the ministersaccused of corruption. By the end of January 2014, eight AKP MPs had left the party

over the row. Istanbul deputy Muhammed Cetin summed up the developments bysaying, ‘with these corruption scandals the AK Party has turned black’,2 warning ofunrest within the party ranks which at the time was expected to lead to further

resignations. However, the intraparty unrest remained under control during theelection campaign period and did not materialise to any significant degree afterwards

as a consequence of the election results.Prime Minister (PM) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, supported by a circle of media outlets,

reverted to a conspiratorial explanation for both these developments and openlyaccused the US of involvement in Turkey’s internal affairs (see Barkey 2013). Despite

apparently continuing security cooperation between the two countries, the AKPleadership did not hesitate openly to threaten US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone with

expulsion. Erdogan argued that the Gezi protests and the corruption allegations were

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created and supported by the same ‘circles of treason’. The graft allegations and theinitial operations targeting the four ministers, their families and the business network

surrounding themwere all allegedly related to the religious and social Gulenmovement

and its links to the security and legal establishment.3 As such, the corruption scandalwas initially interpreted as a sign of a rupture between the AKP government and its

conservative coalition partners in the Gulenmovement.4 Two developments during theGezi protests were also significant from this perspective. One was the participation of

groups of pro-Islamist youth in the protests (see Trembley 2013). The other was theopen support for the Gezi protests from conservative intellectuals with a declaration

reported widely in the media.5 The conspiratorial explanatory framework adopted by

Erdogan and the circles of intellectual support around him primarily argued that all theGezi protests were provoked by western interest lobbies.6

It appears that Erdogan aimed to dilute the Gezi Park resistance, distancing it fromany association with conservative circles by projecting it as a polarised struggle

between the AKP’s own traditional pro-Islamist conservative support base, on the onehand, and the liberal centre-left together with the non-Kurdish extreme left on the

other.7 If the Gezi protesters had united the liberal youth with their conservativecounterparts, then the threat to the AKP could have been much more serious.

Realising the potency of this danger, the AKP leadership was quick to react boldly,

drawing a clear distinction between the protestors and their conservative counterparts.The reactions to the Gezi events may be seen as forming the foundation of the AKP’s

local election campaign. In order to consolidate its own electoral base, the AKPleadership successfully shifted the focus away from the simmering voices of discontent

within conservative circles towards the liberal left-wing Gezi protestors, arguing thatthe latter were not only supported by the West but also by a parallel state that was

insinuated to have links with the Gulen movement. Thus, the Gulen movement wasportrayed not as the integral element of the conservative coalition that it once was, but

rather as part of a parallel or deep state/security establishment in coalition with the

West. Rather than effectively attacking its own support based by targeting the Gulenmovement, the AKP could strike at and silence the movement by portraying it as a

network with no ideological affinity with the AKP conservative coalition. The electionresults suggest this polarisation strategy has been largely successful, impeding the

erosion of electoral support for the AKP government.8

The impact of the political crisis resulting from the graft allegations was

immediately felt on the economic front in the form of rising exchange rates. On 16December 2013, the exchange rate was about 2.03 Turkish Liras (TL) to one United

States (US) dollar. On 24 January 2014 it reached 2.31 TL. In an effort to calm the

outflow of foreign exchange, on 28 January the Central Bank raised its overnightlending rate from 7.75 to 12 per cent and the overnight borrowing rate from 3.5 to 8

per cent. Following this Central Bank decision, the exchange rate stabilised at around2.2 TL/US$. From the government’s perspective, the cost of these developments was

immense, estimated at around US$100 billion even before the exchange rate hikes atthe end of January 2014.9

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The deteriorating economic conditions were not only shaped by global economicdevelopments but were primarily the outcome of the apparent political crisis in the

country (see Onis 2014). After being in power for more than 11 years, the AKP

government had started to create the impression that it was no longer in full control ofits own bureaucracy and was unable to meet the policy challenges posed by these

developments.10 This apparent weakness was largely due to an apparent row betweenthe AKP government and the Gulen movement, which is alleged to have considerable

influence over several state institutions, especially the judiciary, the police, and thenational intelligence agency. Considering that the Gulen movement was a critical ally

during the AKP’s early years in power, this recent move came as a surprise to many.

However, the collaboration between the Erdogan government and the movement hasrecently been deteriorating. Among the factors creating this division, the government’s

announcement of plans to close down or strictly regulate the network of prep-schoolsor dershaneler controlled by the movement appears most salient. However, a difference

of visions over the Kurdish opening and reforms to foreign policy initiatives as well asreactions to the Gezi protests may be seen as underlying factors creating the divergence

between the movement and the AKP leadership.11

Given this complicated background, the March 2014 local elections remain a puzzle

waiting to be unfolded and explained. Going into the elections, economic and political

conditions were quite unfavourable for the government. The economy appeared to bedeteriorating; the broad conservative coalition behind the AKP government appeared to

be breaking apart. The Gezi protests and the graft allegations not only created anunfavourable environment for the AKP but also sparked an unusual level of interest and

mobilisation of electoral forces likely to encourage an increased participation rate in theelections. Younger generationsof voters especiallywere expected to be drawn to the voting

booth, potentially creating new support dynamics behind the alternatives to the AKP. Anadditional factor that could have mobilised the masses against the AKP government was

the ban imposed on access to internet social networks such as Twitter and YouTube.12

However, the election outcome proved less favourable than expected for the

opposition parties. While the latter did gain some electoral ground, they remained far

from ousting the AKP from power. Meanwhile, although the electoral hierarchyremained unchanged from the 2011 general elections, it was the third party, the

Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetc�i Hareket Partisi [MHP]), rather than the officialopposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi [CHP]) which scored

the highest gains. This suggests the opposition might be pushed towards an uneasycooperation against the AKP, given that it seems that as long as long as the opposition

remains divided, the AKP’s electoral comfort zone cannot be dismantled. The

influence of the Gulen movement upon these outcomes cannot be assessed with thedata and measurement opportunities at hand. However, clues can be found

concerning some other questions. What choices did the younger generations make inthe local elections? How did economic perceptions and graft allegations influence

voting decisions? The primary objective of this article is to provide answers to thesequestions. A brief overview of the election outcome will be presented first before I

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move on to assess the generational gap expectation and the economic vote hypothesis

in the local elections of 2014.

A Descriptive Account of the March 2014 Election Results

The complete and detailed official election results were not available at the time this

article was written. Hence, the analysis presented below was based on data drawn by

the author from the websites of two daily newspapers:13 the provincial election results

from Radikal and the district-level results from Hurriyet.14 The real difficulty with

these data occurs when comparing the 2014 results with earlier elections, since both

the number and the constituency borders of Greater City Municipalities (GCMs) were

changed in 2012.15 The constituencies for the GCMs were enlarged beyond the urban

municipalities to include the whole province, including rural areas. Thus in 2014 rural

inhabitants within the 16 existing and 14 newly established GCMs were able to vote in

the GCM mayoral elections. This makes any comparison with earlier election results

for these 30 provinces problematic. Although the metropolitan and district mayors are

directly elected via a plurality system, the metropolitan assembly is not elected but

composed of representatives of district assemblies. Hence, there is no GCM-wide vote

for political party representatives for the GCM assembly. Those who live in a GCM

vote for the GCM mayoral candidates and their district mayors and district assembly

representatives from political parties and cast their vote for their village or

neighborhood headman (muhtar). To find the level of support for political parties

(and not just for their mayoral candidates), the only option is to aggregate the district

assembly votes for all parties and then calculate their share within their respective

GCMs. However, to use just the 30 GCM mayoral votes together with general

provincial assembly votes in the remaining 51 provinces would not be very

appropriate, since in the GCM mayoral elections voting decisions are likely to be

largely driven by candidate characteristics while the provincial general assembly vote is

driven by partisan considerations.

Figure 1 compares the party family vote shares for the March 2014 local elections

with the post-1980 general and local elections, depicting them in two different

versions. In version I, the GCM mayoral candidate vote shares are shown together

with the provincial assembly vote shares in the 51 non-GCMs. In version II, the

GCM assembly vote shares are aggregated from district assembly votes and shown

together with provincial assembly vote shares in 51 other provinces. The vote shares

in version I are reflective of mayoral candidate appeal while the version II vote shares

are more reflective of partisan loyalties in the 30 GCMs. Since the geographical

boundaries and hence the constituencies included in neither version I nor version II

correspond to data aggregation definitions used in 2009, neither set of results is

perfectly comparable with 2009. Yet, in order to answer the main question of which

parties gained or lost votes compared with earlier elections, both versions of data

aggregation are used.16

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Figure

1ElectoralTrendsin

GeneralandLocalElections,1983

–2014

Source:TurkishStatisticalInstitute

http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/U

stMenu.do?m

etod¼t

emelist

Note:Localelectionsareshownwithaverticalline.

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Change or Continuity?

How, then, has national electoral support changed since the 2009 local and 2011

general elections? We observe that the incumbent AKP lost support in both versions

I and II compared with 2011, but in fact remained above its level of national support

compared with 2009. The AKP’s losses did not primarily benefit one party but appear

to have been shared among the opposition forces. For both the AKP and CHP, the

nationwide vote share calculated according to version I is higher than the share in

version II, suggesting that the appeal of their candidate was slightly higher than their

overall partisan appeal, which is more reflected in version II. This is perhaps more to

be expected for the ruling AKP. We do not yet have a comprehensive evaluation of the

candidates put forward by different parties and how credible, experienced, close to

their constituency, and trustworthy they were. However, one might expect that in a

party system where one party is predominant, ‘better’ candidates would be more easily

attracted to the ruling party. Nevertheless, we observe that the official opposition

CHP’s candidate-dominated vote share in version I is higher than its partisanship-

dominated vote share in version II.

At least one obvious reason for this appears to be because CHP candidates in

Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir appear to have performed much better than in the rest of

the country. When we use the version I vote calculations, take out these three

metropolitan provincial election results, and calculate the parties’ vote shares for the

rest of the country, we observe that while the AKP vote increases slightly to 46 per cent,

the CHP drops to 22 per cent and the MHP rises to about 20 per cent. With version II

vote calculations we observe the same pattern. While the AKP vote share rises

marginally to nearly 48 per cent, that of the CHP drops significantly to 21 per cent

while the MHP rises to 21 per cent. In other words, when we take the partisan vote

calculations as reflected in the version II results, we still see the AKP enjoying around

the same support levels while the CHP falls to around the same level as the MHP.

These observations suggest that the geographical distribution of support for all parties

is likely to reveal significant variation.The Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (Barıs ve Demokrasi Partisi [BDP]) in the

2014 local elections adopted a parallel election strategy with the socialist Peoples’

Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi [HDP]). While the BDP ran in the

Kurdish-dominated southeast, the HDP competed in the rest of the country except

Mersin and Konya, where BDP ran its own candidates. The two parties’ combined

national vote share remained around five to six per cent. However, like the pattern in

earlier elections, the BDP/HDP vote is strongly regional. The BDP received

approximately 56 per cent in Diyarbakır, 70 per cent in Hakkari, and 73 per cent in

Sırnak; the HDP received about 8 per cent in Adana, 4 per cent in Izmir, and 5 per cent

in Istanbul and Tunceli. Following the elections, the two parties were reorganised in a

joint structure, with the BDP parliamentarians joining the HDP while the BDP’s

representatives remained in control at the local level.

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Geography of the March 2014 Results

Earlier work on geographical patterns in recent Turkish election results observed three

distinct electoral regions. One is the coastal provinces where the CHP is relatively more

powerful. The second is the Kurdish-dominated east and southeastern provincial

region where the Kurdish ethnic parties and the AKP garner almost all the votes.

The third is the larger central Anatolian region between the aforementioned two

regions. Typically, these central Anatolian provinces are dominated by the pro-Islamist

and nationalist parties.17 To what extent did these patterns continue in 2014?

Table 1 shows the vote distribution of parties for the convenient geographical

provincial clusters given at nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS1)

level. These clusters of provinces do not necessarily correspond to any historical

political pattern of preferences. Several patterns of differentiation of political

preferences across these provincial groupings nevertheless surface. First among these is

the observation that the AKP is the largest party across all geographic regions except

the Aegean region. The latter is remarkable for having the highest turnout level (91.3

per cent), the highest level of support for the CHP (about 41 per cent), and the lowest

regional score for the AKP (a still remarkable 36 per cent). The AKP strongholds are

the Eastern Black Sea (where it has won 55.7 per cent of the vote) and Central Anatolia

(54.1 per cent). It is also remarkable that the AKP support exceeds 50 per cent in six of

the 12 NUTS1 regions. Only in the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Western Marmara

regions do we see the AKP falling to the 35 to 40 per cent range.

As for the CHP, the old coastal pattern of electoral support continues although with

some shrinking support. The CHP is not the first party in any region other than the

Aegean. In Istanbul, it gets about the same level of support as in the Aegean while in

the Western Marmara region it has garnered a respectable 37 per cent. In the

geographically large region of Western Anatolia, comprising Ankara, Konya, and

Karaman, CHP support is 33 per cent in version I and only about 25 per cent in version

II. However, when we take Ankara out of this group, we see that in Konya and

Karaman the CHP vote is only about seven per cent. In these two provinces, the MHP

vote at 22 per cent is more than three times that of the CHP. In the Aegean region,

when we take Izmir out, we find the CHP is at about 30 per cent and the MHP at 29 per

cent. Once again we see that the main opposition party and the Turkish nationalist

MHP are neck and neck in these regions. The same is true for the Mediterranean

region. In version I, both parties are at 28 per cent but in version II where partisanship

is presumed to drive voting decisions, the MHP garners a larger vote share and

emerges as the second party in that region. In the Western Black Sea, Central Anatolia,

and North Eastern Anatolia regions, we again notice that the MHP’s support exceeds

that of the CHP. In the Eastern Black Sea region, the two parties appear at about the

same level. In other words, in five out of 12 regions the MHP is now the second party

after the AKP. Considering the fact that in Istanbul and Ankara the candidate selection

and party campaign strategies of both parties appeared to support a winning solution

against the AKP, the third party status of the MHP could be seen as a direct function of

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Table

1LocalElectionResultsacross

Geographic

Regions,2014

Greater

CityMayoralvote

shares

together

withProvincialAssem

bly

vote

shares

(VersionI)

Greater

CityAssem

bly

together

with

ProvincialAssem

bly

vote

shares

(VersionII)

NUTS1

Provinces

TurnoutAKP

CHP

MHP

BDP/HDP/

Independents

Others

AKP

CHP

MHP

BDP/HDP/

Independents

Others

Istanbul

Istanbul

90.7

47.9

40.0

4.0

4.8

3.2

100

45.0

36.7

7.4

5.0

5.9

100

Aegean

Izmir,Manisa,Afyon,Kutahya,Usak,

Aydın,Denizli,Mugla

91.3

36.3

40.7

17.3

2.6

3.2

100

34.2

37.2

20.9

2.8

4.9

100

Mediterranean

Adana,Mersin,H

atay,K

ahramanmaras,

Osm

aniye,Antalya,Isparta,Burdur

89.1

38.1

28.2

28.1

4.4

1.1

100

35.3

27.2

28.0

5.0

4.5

100

South

East

Anatolia

Sanlıurfa,Diyarbakır,Gaziantep,

Adıyam

an,Kilis,Mardin,Batman,

Sırnak,Siirt

84.0

47.9

7.5

5.1

26.9

12.5

100

45.0

7.4

6.1

31.5

10.0

100

Western

Anatolia

Ankara,Konya,Karam

an90.6

50.1

33.0

11.1

1.1

4.8

100

47.2

24.9

18.7

1.4

7.8

100

Eastern

Marmara

Bursa,Eskisehir,Bilecik,Kocaeli,

Sakarya,Duzce,Bolu,Yalova

90.6

49.8

26.9

16.6

1.6

5.1

100

46.4

25.6

19.0

1.6

7.4

100

Western

Black

Sea

Samsun,To

kat,Corum,Amasya,

Zonguldak,Karabuk,

Bartın,

Kastamonu,Cankırı,Sinop

88.2

52.3

17.8

25.0

0.2

4.7

100

49.9

17.9

26.4

0.2

5.6

100

Central

Anatolia

Kayseri,Sivas,Yozgat,Kırıkkale,

Aksaray,Nigde,Nevsehir,Kırsehir

90.1

54.1

10.7

25.9

0.3

8.9

100

52.2

11.3

26.9

0.3

9.4

100

Central-East

Anatolia

Van,Mus,Bitlis,Hakkari,Malatya,

Elazıg,

Bingol,Tunceli

85.5

51.0

8.3

6.3

25.0

9.3

100

50.2

8.7

7.3

25.0

8.7

100

Eastern

Black

Sea

Trabzon,Ordu,Giresun,Rize,Artvin,

Gumushane

86.2

55.7

27.3

10.7

0.2

6.1

100

53.6

19.7

19.7

0.2

6.8

100

Western

Marmara

Balıkesir,Canakkale,Tekirdag,Edirne,

Kırklareli

90.7

37.9

34.9

23.2

1.1

3.0

100

36.8

36.6

20.9

1.1

4.6

100

NorthEast

Anatolia

Erzurum,E

rzincan,B

ayburt,Agrı,Kars,

Igdır,Ardahan

84.4

51.1

5.0

25.3

12.3

6.4

100

47.7

6.0

22.4

13.3

10.5

100

Total

89.4

45.7

29.7

14.4

5.6

4.6

100

43.0

27.1

17.1

6.2

6.5

100

Source:Author’scollectionfrom

thewebsitesofRadikal

andHurriyetdailynew

spapers.

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the campaign strategy. Hence the real question after the March 2014 elections becomeswhether the MHP’s rise at the polls is here to stay.

Although the MHP’s rise is very obvious and has occurred for the first time since

1999, the party is still far from being sufficiently competitive to win elections.The nature of this changing electoral appeal can be observed in comparisons with

either the 2009 local or 2011 general elections. A comparison with the 2009 localelection results, in which the AKP lost considerable support from the 2007 general

elections, would favour the AKP, since then its vote shares in most places would appearto be increasing in 2014. However, in 2011 the AKP had already recuperated from its

losses in 2009. Hence, a more conservative comparison will be adopted here and

comparisons will be made with the 2011 general election results across provinces.18

In the Kurdish vote, there is a strong regional differentiation. In Southeastern

Anatolia (Sanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, Adıyaman, Kilis, Mardin, Batman, Sırnak,Siirt) the BDP won about 32 per cent of the vote (version II) but remained well below

the AKP, which garnered about 45 per cent in the region. Similarly, in Central EastAnatolia (Van, Mus, Bitlis, Hakkari, Malatya, Elazıg, Bingol, Tunceli) the BDP vote

(25 per cent) remains about half the AKP’s share (50 per cent). Although the BDP voteshare in Central-East, North East and Southeastern Anatolia region remains below

that of the AKP, it was able to win mayoral races in ten provinces.Table 2 shows the development in the vote shares of the four major parties from

2011 to 2014. As expected, after controlling for regional differences, we see that the

provincial vote shares in the previous 2011 general election results appear to besignificant. The coefficient for the 2011 results is less than unity for both the AKP and

the CHP, indicating that only a fraction of their 2011 provincial vote shares werecarried over into the 2014 provincial election results, the CHP being relatively more

successful in doing so (0.88. 0.77). However, for the MHP the coefficient of the 2011provincial results is larger than unity, indicating on average a rising vote share from

2011 to 2014.

When we examine the AKP vote shares across provinces, only in four cases is there aslight increase in 2014 over the 2011 level. Elsewhere, the AKP has lost some vote share,

but in most provinces (e.g. Rize, Aydın, and Edirne) this is only a few percentagepoints. Only in a few cases (e.g. Afyon, Kırsehir, and Ardahan) is there a drop of about

ten percentage points and only in isolated examples (e.g. Kırıkkale) does the declinereach about 20 percentage points. In all the large metropolitan provinces (e.g. Ankara,

Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, and Adana) the AKP vote share declined by about four to seven

percentage points.For the CHP, the progression of electoral support from 2011 to 2014 appears more

favourable and in about a dozen provinces we observe a net rise in the party’s voteshare. However, with the exception of Izmir this increase did not produce a winning

result in 2014. In fact, despite these modest increases, we see that the CHP’s electoralsupport in 2014 remains below 40 per cent in all except six provinces (Eskisehir,

Edirne, Mugla, Tekirdag, Kırklareli, and Izmir). What is most striking is thegeographic concentration of very low levels of support for this party in quite a large

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Table

2Explaining2014

ProvincialElectionResultswith2011

ResultsandRegionalDifferences

DependentVariables

AKP-2014

CHP-2014

MHP-2014

BDP/H

DP-2014

IndependentVariables:

BStd.Error

Sig.

BStd.Error

Sig.

BStd.Error

Sig.

BStd.Error

Sig.

(Constant)

6.82

1.61

0.00

3.75

1.62

0.02

2.72

1.99

0.18

.12

.90

.90

AKP-2011

0.77

0.03

0.00

––

––

––

––

–CHP-2011

––

–0.88

0.04

0.00

––

––

––

MHP-2011

––

––

––

1.07

0.09

0.00

––

–Independents-2011

––

––

––

––

–0.92

0.02

0.00

Regional

DummyVariables:

Aegean:Izmir,Manisa,Afyon,Kutahya,Usak,

Aydın,

Denizli,Mugla

23.66

1.29

0.01

22.70

1.82

0.14

5.85

2.16

0.01

2.09

1.32

.95

Mediterranean:A

dana,Mersin,H

atay,K

ahramanmaras,

Osm

aniye,Antalya,Isparta,Burdur

23.07

1.29

0.02

23.25

1.81

0.08

4.75

2.22

0.04

.41

1.32

.76

Southeast

Anatolia:

Sanlıurfa,Diyarbakır,Gaziantep,

Adıyam

an,Kilis,Mardin,Batman,Sırnak,Siirt

21.34

1.25

0.29

25.07

1.89

0.01

20.69

2.28

0.76

2.17

1.53

.16

Western

Anatolia:

Ankara,Konya,Karam

an0.02

1.76

0.99

23.11

2.49

0.21

2.13

2.95

0.47

.27

1.81

.88

Western

Black

Sea:Samsun,To

kat,Corum,Amasya,

Zonguldak,K

arabuk,Bartın,K

astamonu,C

ankırı,Sinop

20.08

1.21

0.95

25.03

1.71

0.00

6.58

2.04

0.00

2.18

1.28

.89

Central

Anatolia:

Kayseri,Sivas,Yozgat,Kırıkkale,

Aksaray,Nigde,Nevsehir,Kırsehir

24.35

1.29

0.00

24.57

1.85

0.02

5.83

2.17

0.01

2.39

1.32

.77

Central

EastAnatolia:

Van,Mus,Bitlis,Hakkari,

Malatya,Elazıg,

Bingol,Tunceli

20.50

1.29

0.70

27.14

1.87

0.00

22.94

2.34

0.21

3.71

1.51

0.02

Eastern

Black

Sea:Trabzon,Ordu,Giresun,Rize,

Artvin,Gumushane

0.81

1.40

0.57

22.63

1.97

0.19

1.46

2.34

0.53

2.03

1.43

.98

Western

Marmara:

Balıkesir,Canakkale,Tekirdag,

Edirne,Kırklareli

21.19

1.52

0.44

23.13

2.23

0.16

2.73

2.47

0.27

,29

1.51

,85

NortheasternAnatolia:

Erzurum,Erzincan,Bayburt,

Agrı,Kars,Igdır,Ardahan

25.79

1.33

0.00

24.35

1.94

0.03

20.34

2.23

0.88

4.32

1.41

0.00

Adjusted

Rsquared

0.94

0.92

0.83

0.98

Source:Author’scollectionfrom

thewebsitesofRadikal

andHurriyetdaily

new

spapers.

Notes:B,estimated

coefficients;bolded

figuresarestatisticallysignificantat

p,

0.05.

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number of provinces in the East and Southeastern Anatolia region. The CHP obtainedless than ten per cent of the vote in a total of 28 provinces, 17 of which are in these two

regions. In Agrı, Sırnak, Van, Hakkari, Sanlıurfa, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Mardin, Batman

Siirt, Mus, and Bingol the CHP vote remains below three per cent. This clearly suggestsa regional narrowing of the CHP’s electoral base to the western coastal provinces and

its reduction to virtual non-existence in the East and Southeastern provinces.Let us turn to the MHP’s provincial vote. The party has a low electoral presence in

the Central-East, North East and Southeastern Anatolia provinces, winning less thanthree per cent in Bingol, Hakkari, Diyarbakır, Mardin, Batman, Siirt, Sırnak, Van, Agrı,

Tunceli, Mus, and Bitlis. However, in many provinces of Central andWestern Anatolia,the MHP vote share has significantly increased compared with 2011. Despite this, it

still remains well below a winning margin for mayoral races. Nevertheless, if the MHP

were to win a similar vote share in the next general election, it would stand to benefitsignificantly in terms of national parliamentary seats.

Since the regional differences in Table 2 are relative to the level of support for theparty in question in the reference category region of Istanbul and Eastern Marmara

provinces, the relative standing of vote shares are comparable across all parties. Whenin this table a party’s regional coefficient is positive and significant, it means that after

controlling for its own vote in 2011 the party in question stands above its level ofsupport in the reference group of Istanbul and Eastern Marmara provinces. Hence,

while the coefficient for the AKP is negative and the coefficient is positive for a given

region, then it means that while the AKP stands below the reference province group forthat region the MHP stands above its own performance in the reference provinces.

After controlling for the 2011 general election results, the CHP experiences a similarvote loss in all regions where the AKP vote has declined compared with Istanbul and

the Eastern Marmara region. In other words, the AKP as well as the CHP appear tohave peaked in the reference category, and in all other regions both parties performed

relatively worse. Their relative electoral performances are hence similar to one another.

However, only in the Southeast Anatolia region (Sanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep,Adıyaman, Kilis, Mardin, Batman, Sırnak, Siirt) is the MHP’s average vote share lower

than in Istanbul and the EasternMarmara region. In all other regions, the level is eitherthe same or shows a significant increase. This means that on average the MHP has

increased its provincial vote share in the Aegean, Central East Anatolia, and WesternBlack Sea provinces. Whereas the AKP and CHP appear to have a relatively lower level

of support compared with the reference category region of Istanbul and EasternMarmara region, the MHP appears to have the completely reverse pattern of relative

regional support.

The same analysis for the BDP/HDP vote reveals a similar pattern. The BDP has alarger percentage of variation explained by regional differences than the other three

major parties. We see that the BDP was able to increase its support in Siirt, Igdır, Mus,Van, Tunceli, Kars, and Ardahan. Accordingly, Table 2 reveals a significantly higher

support level for the regions of Central East Anatolia (Van, Mus, Bitlis, Hakkari,Malatya, Elazıg, Bingol, Tunceli) and Northeastern Anatolia (Erzurum, Erzincan,

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Bayburt, Agrı, Kars, Igdır, Ardahan). However, after controlling for the vote level in2011, the regional vote share in the South Eastern Anatolia region appears insignificantly

different from the reference category region of Istanbul and the EasternMarmara region.These results may be suggestive of the influence that the recent suspension of

Kurdistan Worker’s Part (PKK) activity due to the peace process has had upon boththe AKP and the BDP/HDP vote. The country’s Kurdish-speaking regions appear

exclusively dominated by these two parties, since no other party won any significantvote share here. The AKP appears to have a solid and consolidated proportion of the

conservative Islamist Kurdish vote which is considerably larger than that of the left-of-centre BDP and socialist HDP. More specific influence of the so-called peace processcould not be identified at this stage but it appears that the AKP maintains a

comfortable margin of electoral support that could be very instrumental in theapproaching presidential elections. Given the established pattern of Kurdish support

for the AKP, it is not inconceivable that the peace process and the Kurdish issue willplay a significant role in the presidential election campaign.

Electoral Turnout, the Generation Gap, and Socio-Economic Characteristics

Participation as a Factor Shaping the Results

Figure 2 shows the evolution of the participation rate in general and local electionssince 1950. In 2014 approximately 90 per cent of registered voters turned out to vote.

This is the highest turnout in any Turkish election after 1994 and the third highest inany local government contest in Turkish electoral history. The local governmentcontests with higher turnout took place in 1984 and 1994, respectively. The former, the

first local government contest since the 1980 coup, was shaped by the extraordinarypolitical circumstances of the transition to democracy, the military regime, and the

latter’s imposition of compulsory voting. In this case, a turnout rate in excess of 90 percent was not very surprising. In the latter case, the local elections of 1994 marked the

rise of the pro-Islamist Welfare Party (Refah Partisi [RP]) and saw the RP candidate,Recep Tayyip Erdogan, elected as Mayor of Istanbul. A second striking point is that

turnout in the 2014 local government elections was higher than in the 2011parliamentary election. Since local elections are largely considered to be of secondaryimportance compared with general elections, the expectation is that participation will

be lower in local elections. In the Turkish case, this expectation has been empiricallyjustified in all except the 1994, 2009, and 2014 local elections. Indeed, in 2004, in the

first local elections of the AKP term, the turnout rate hit the lowest level for the post-1980 period (about 76 per cent). However, in the two subsequent local elections (2009

and 2014), participation was higher than in the preceding general election, suggestinga higher mobilisation of the masses in local than in general elections.19 This high

turnout raises the question of the party preferences of groups that typically have lowerlevels of electoral participation. Younger voters are among the most intriguing of these

groups. Given the intense youth activity during the Gezi protests, one wonders to what

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extent younger generations have a partisan inclination in favour of or against a given

party and especially their attitude to the ruling AKP.

The Youth Vote

Table 3 presents the results of a pre-election survey conducted within the NationalIdentity module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP: www.issp.org)

during the two months prior to the local elections.20 Party preference in a surveysetting during a local election campaign is a tricky question. From greater city

municipalities to district municipalities, which election forms the basis of the questionis likely to become blurred in the minds of the respondents. Hence the question aboutparty preference if there were to be a general election on the day of the interview is used

for this table to obtain comparable figures for the tables and figures presented earlier.While the results suggest a distinct generation gap, influence of the Gezi protests in

mobilising support for the opposition parties seems to have only partially materialisedin the election. The AKP remains the largest party among young people aged 25 and

under, winning 37.1 per cent of the youth vote. However, this is considerably lowerthan the party’s support (50.5 per cent) among those over 25. Thus, the ruling AKP

now appears to face younger voters from a disadvantageous position. However, youngvoters did not opt for the official opposition CHP. In fact, the latter’s support among

those aged under 26 (15.8 per cent) was lower than among the population as a whole

Figure 2 Participation Rate (%)Source: Turkish Statistical Institute (http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/UstMenu.do?metod¼ temelist).Note: Local elections are shown with a vertical line.

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Table

3DeterminantsofParty

Preferences,Pre-ElectionSu

rvey

AKP

BDP

CHP

MHP

Others

Willnotvote

foranyparty

Undecided

NR/D

K

Age

Age

26andabove

50.5

4.7

20.0

10.4

3.1

4.6

5.1

1.7

100

Age

18to

2537.1

11.6

15.8

17.0

4.2

7.3

6.2

0.8

100

Kurdish

Non-Kurdish

49.6

0.1

21.7

13.5

3.3

5.0

5.2

1.5

100

Kurdish

41.6

33.6

7.3

1.9

3.1

5.3

5.3

1.9

100

Education

Noform

aleducation

57.4

10.9

11.6

3.9

1.6

3.9

7.8

3.1

100

Primaryschoolgraduate

59.6

3.5

15.1

11.0

2.3

2.3

4.2

2.0

100

Juniorhigh/8-year

primaryschoolgraduate

46.9

8.5

13.4

17.4

2.7

4.9

4.9

1.3

100

HighSchool

22.1

4.2

52.2

7.4

3.0

6.4

4.0

0.5

100

University

graduate

19.2

2.5

18.5

44.8

2.5

5.0

3.6

0.7

100

Party

Preferencesin

2011

AKP

85.4

0.3

3.0

3.7

0.9

0.0

3.7

1.1

100

BDP

1.4

97.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

1.9

0.0

0.0

100

CHP

0.8

0.4

90.2

1.6

1.2

1.4

2.0

0.0

100

MHP

6.2

0.0

1.5

82.3

0.8

3.9

4.6

2.3

100

Total

48.2

5.8

19.3

11.5

3.3

5.1

5.3

1.6

100

Source:ISSP

–Turkey,NationalIdentity

module;seeCarko

gluandKalaycıoglu(2014).

Notes:N

R/D

K,n

oresponse/don’tkn

ow;besidestheentriesforpartyshareswithin

thetotalsam

pleallother

bolded

figuresaresignificantlylarger

than

the

totalparty

shares

inoursample.

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(19.3 per cent). Instead, young people opted for the nationalist parties (with Turkishyoung people more likely to vote for the MHP and the Kurdish-speaking youth for the

BDP.) Compared with the national mean for these parties, both the BDP and the MHPreceived a higher proportion of votes from young people aged 25 and under. This

clearly has important implications for the future.

Other Socio-Economic Characteristics

In line with the geographic distribution of the vote discussed above, the CHP andMHP receive very little support from Kurdish speakers. However, while the AKP is the

only major party to garner a significant Kurdish vote, its appeal among Kurdishspeakers is lower than among Turkish speakers. Education and voting for the AKP

appear inversely linked; as the educational level drops, the likelihood of supporting theAKP increases. A similar pattern is observed for the BDP. However, CHP support is

highest among high school graduates. MHP support is highest among universitygraduates – the party in fact received a striking 44.8 per cent of the graduate vote –

and lowest among those with no formal education.At the time of the fieldwork, about 11 per cent of 2011 AKP voters were either

intending to vote for another party or reported that they were undecided. The MHP

was losing more voters to the AKP than it was gaining from the party. Mostimportantly, the MHP’s 2011 voters had the highest level of undecided respondents

compared with other parties. However, there appears to have been very little flow ofvoters between the CHP and MHP in 2011. Contrary perhaps to expectations, only

about 1.5 per cent of 2011 CHP voters reported they were considering voting for theMHP in 2014 and vice versa.

Economic Perceptions and Corruption Allegations as Determinants of VotingBehaviour

Economic Evaluations

Table 4 reports simple descriptive cross-tabulation between evaluations of economicconditions and party choice as reported in the ISSP pre-election survey.21 Here weclearly see that if an individual has negative evaluations, either retrospective or

prospective or pocketbook rather than sociotropic, the likelihood of support for AKPsignificantly declines relative to voters with more favourable economic evaluations.

Retrospective pocketbook evaluations of a voter’s family’s economic conditions appearto have the greatest impact in reducing the likelihood of voting for the AKP. However,

if a respondent’s sociotropic economic evaluations of future developments arefavourable, then the positive impact upon AKP party choice is maximised. The reverse

relationship is observed for the opposition parties. Those with a negative evaluation ofthe state of the economy tend to vote for the opposition at significantly higher rates

than those who have positive perceptions. This pattern is very much in line with earlier

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Table

4EconomicConditionEvaluationsandParty

Preferences

AKP

BDP

CHP

MHP

Other

Willnotvote

foranyparty

Undecided

NR/DK

Total

Economicpolicies

ofthegovernmentoverthepastyear

havehad

aBAD

effect

onFA

MILYeconomicconditions(0

to4)

34.7

12.4

48.5

24.0

5.2

11.6

7.4

3.0

100

Neither

bad

norgood(5)

52.8

7.0

16.8

8.7

3.3

4.3

5.6

1.4

100

Economicpolicies

ofthegovernmentoverthepastyear

havehad

aGOOD

effect

onFA

MILYeconomicconditions(6

to10)

70.7

1.4

7.4

9.3

2.9

2.7

4.5

1.0

100

Economicpolicies

ofthegovernmentoverthepastyear

havehad

aBAD

effect

onTURKEY’seconomicconditions(0

to4)

23.4

8.3

49.1

25.4

5.7

8.6

7.1

2.0

100

Neither

bad

norgood(5)

45.7

8.9

16.0

11.9

3.0

4.2

8.3

2.1

100

Economicpolicies

ofthegovernmentoverthepastyear

havehad

aGOOD

effect

onTURKEY’seconomicconditions(6

to10)

69.6

3.3

9.2

6.3

2.9

4.5

3.2

1.0

100

YourpresenteconomicconditionisUNSA

TISFA

CTORY(0

to4)

28.0

9.9

46.1

21.6

4.5

8.5

8.5

3.2

100

Neither

satisfactory

norunsatisfactory

(5)

51.7

5.6

16.5

11.1

2.7

6.1

5.4

1.0

100

YourpresenteconomicconditionisSA

TISFA

CTORY(0

to4)

72.2

2.5

7.1

7.3

4.0

2.5

3.1

1.3

100

EconomicconditionsofyourFA

MILYoverthenextyear

willhavea

NEGATIVEdevelopment(0

to4)

27.1

8.5

53.9

22.2

4.2

8.1

8.8

2.8

100

Neither

negativenorpositive

(5)

46.2

5.7

18.8

11.8

4.4

6.8

5.0

1.3

100

EconomicconditionsofyourFA

MILYoverthenextyear

willhavea

POSITIVEdevelopment(6

to10)

73.8

1.8

6.9

7.7

2.6

2.4

4.1

0.8

100

EconomicconditionsofTURKEYoverthenextyear

willhavea

NEGATIVEdevelopment(0

to4)

23.2

6.7

56.3

23.9

5.6

7.4

7.0

3.2

100

Neither

negativenorpositive

(5)

40.2

5.5

20.9

13.9

3.9

7.0

6.1

2.5

100

EconomicconditionsofTURKEYoverthenextyear

willhavea

POSITIVEdevelopment(6

to10)

75.2

3.3

5.6

6.2

2.3

3.3

3.8

0.3

100

Total

48.2

5.8

19.3

11.5

3.3

5.1

5.3

1.6

100

Source:ISSP

–Turkey,NationalIdentity

module;seeCarko

gluandKalaycıoglu(2014).

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findings in the literature (see Carkoglu 2008; 2012a; Baslevent, Kirmanoglu &

Senatalar 2005; 2009).The question is whether and to what degree negative economic perceptions were

prevalent prior to the 2014 local elections. Figure 3 shows a comparative summary of

all five different types of economic evaluations used in Table 4.22 For each of these

different evaluations, only the percentage of negative evaluators is taken and its

development is traced over the past 13 years. What is observed here is a clear reflection

of the AKP’s relative success in managing voters’ economic expectations. When the

AKP came to power in 2002, the level of negative economic evaluations, both present

day and retrospective, was extremely high (75–90 per cent). However, expectations

about future economic developments, whether pocketbook or sociotropic, were

significantly more positive (around 35 per cent). From 2002 to 2007 both retrospective

as well as prospective evaluations appear to have improved with declining negative

percentages. When the global economic crisis hit Turkey in 2008, negative sentiment

rose again but at a relatively low level compared with 2002 (around 50–65 per cent).

What is remarkable is the continual improvement in sentiment from 2008 onwards, in

2011 reaching a level comparable to 2007 when negative expectations about the future

were below 20 per cent and retrospective negative evaluations were around 30 per cent.

This improved perception of the economic situation is likely to have helped the AKP

win yet another parliamentary election with an increased vote share in 2011.

After the 2011 general election, negative economic evaluations rose continuously

until 2014. However, although the distinction between past and future evaluations

disappeared in this period, the overall level of retrospective negative evaluations is

Figure 3 Negative Economic Evaluations, 2002–13Source: ISSP–Turkey, National Identity module; see Carkoglu and Kalaycıoglu (2014).

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comparable to 2011. In other words, despite all the graft allegations and the economicdifficulties these triggered in the Turkish market, voters appear to have a relatively

positive view of their own and their country’s economic conditions.

Views of Corruption

Another interesting question concerns voters’ reactions to the allegations ofgovernmental graft. In a recent article, Klasnja and Tucker (2013) claim that in

‘low-corruption’ countries like Sweden, where corruption is relatively rare, voters tendto punish politicians for corruption regardless of the state of the economy. However, in

‘high-corruption’ countries like Moldova, where bribery and corrupt deals arerelatively more prevalent, voters tend to punish politicians for corruption only when

the economy is also perceived to be doing badly. In this case, when perceptions of thestate of the economy improve, voters tend to be less concerned about corruption.

The Turkish local government elections of March 2014 appear to fit Klasnja andTucker’s framework quite well. Evaluations of the state of the economy did notdeteriorate before the elections. The opposition parties’ almost complete silence on the

economy and focus on the graft issue may not have helped their campaigns. For thecorruption issue to work in favour of the opposition, a public perception that the graft

allegations were well founded was not enough. A negative impact on the vote of theAKP would only be created if the perception of the economy also got worse. In such a

case, we could expect the vote loss to be magnified but this did not happen in Turkeyin 2014.

Conclusions and Future Implications

The Turkish public did not change its party preferences drastically in the 2014 local

elections. The ruling AKP lost some voters’ support but its losses were divided betweenthe two opposition parties with neither rising to a position that could threaten the

AKP’s electoral supremacy. Contrary to many expectations, young voters did notappear to have switched their choices predominantly in favour of the main opposition

party, CHP – rather they seem to have been more favourably predisposed towardsTurkish and Kurdish nationalist parties.

A potentially path-breaking new development concerns the rise of the nationalist

MHP to an electoral position comparable to that of the official opposition, CHP. It islikely that the struggle between the CHP and the MHP for the support of dissatisfied

voters will be the main comforting factor for the AKP, since neither of these oppositionparties seems to be capturing a rising wave of electoral support. As a result, the

opposition remains divided. This diagnosis provides the foundation of future electoralstrategies for the upcoming presidential elections. At the time of writing, the two main

opposition parties were seriously considering forming an electoral coalition behind ajoint presidential candidate in order to impede the election of an AKP candidate who

will most likely be PM Erdogan.

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The literature on predominant parties underlines that opposition parties are likelyto self-destruct through incompetence, clumsy organisation, and non-credible policy

positions. The opposition to the AKP may be providing yet another example of this

phenomenon. The emergent logic of the opposition is to find or create a singlecandidate supported by as large a coalition of parties as possible, thus forcing the

presidential election into a run-off that could result in a loss for the AKP candidate.However, as there do not appear to be any credible political figures with a solid

alternative vision for the country, such a strategy is likely to be naive. With thepresident directly elected by popular vote, the Turkish polity risks being turned into a

de facto presidential system.Although the necessary constitutional arrangements for a presidential system have yet

to be passed by the legislature, the AKP’s rhetoric and the argumentation of Erdogan

signal that, even without the necessary constitutional arrangements, the intention andactual functioning of the political system after the presidential election will be quite close

to a presidential system with powers concentrated in the hands of the popularly electedpresident. It would be naive to pretend that no such development is on the agenda.

An effective political candidate able to counteract all the manoeuvres of the AKPcandidacy and to run an effective political campaign discrediting the AKP positions

and establishing his/her own credibility concerning the exercise of executive powerand the effective delivery of expected policy outputs may be the only way to win the

presidential race. Yet the focus of the opposition appears to be on finding a

compromise candidate with nationalist as well as conservative Islamist credentials thatwill not repel opposition voters while attracting some groups from the AKP

constituency. Such a preoccupation with strategic balancing acts ignores basic voterexpectations that the opposition parties will offer an alternative vision for the

executive office of the country explaining basic policy preferences concerning mainpolicy issues on the country’s agenda. Moreover, such a strategy effectively leaves the

aspirations of the Kurdish constituency unmet or at best uncertain. Given the necessity

of securing the nationalist MHP constituency behind this compromise candidate,Kurdish voters will probably be effectively pushed closer to the AKP candidate, who is

likely to pursue the incumbent government’s policy on the Kurdish opening. Thismeans that no matter how problematic the vision, argumentation, and delivery of the

AKP candidacy, the opposition candidate is not very likely to succeed.The major reason for the AKP’s continued strength is the fact that economic

conditions in Turkey were perceived to be reasonably strong prior to the localelections. At least in the perception of the mass public, the economy was not in great

danger of significant deterioration. Since corruption allegations were nothing new in

the minds of the public, the only way these charges could dent the AKP’s electoralstrength was through a concurrent decline in economic evaluations. However, the

opposition wrongly chose to concentrate its efforts on the graft allegations whilelargely ignoring the country’s economic difficulties. The opposition’s logic for the

presidential elections as outlined above is likely to commit the same error and sufferthe same consequences.

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From a broader theoretical perspective, it should be remembered that besides short-run economic or other policy evaluations, a potent factor shaping voter preferences is

the ideological predispositions of Turkish voters which have resulted in the creation ofa substantial conservative electorate (see Carkoglu 2012b). These conservative

ideological predispositions are unlikely to be abandoned in the short run(see Carkoglu & Kalaycıoglu 2007; 2009; Carkoglu 2007). Significant changes in

long-term ideological predispositions may come primarily with age, politicalsocialisation, and cohort replacement. These long-term factors are all supportive of the

continued electoral strength of the AKP, which has comfortably positioned itselfwithin close ideological range of a conservative electorate. Under such convenientlong-term electoral constellations, the AKP’s future and its strong hold over electoral

choices depend primarily on short-term factors related to economic conditions andevaluations of the government’s policy performance. As noted above, unless these

short-term evaluations turn against the incumbent AKP, even graft allegations may notcreate a downturn in voters’ choices. In other words, it appears that both short- as well

as long-term factors shaping voter preferences are still working to the advantage of theAKP, which thus enters the presidential and subsequent general elections with a

significant advantage.

Notes

1. On the Gezi Park events see Arat (2013), Benhabib (2014), Erturk (2014), Farro and Demirhisar(2014), Gul, Dee and Cunuk (2014), Gurcan and Peker (2014), Kuymulu (2013), Moudouros(2014), Ors (2014), Ozbudun (2014), and Taspınar (2014).

2. The official acronym of the party adopted at the party’s establishment is ‘AK’, or unblemishedpure white, party.

3. The Gulen/Hizmet or ‘service’ movement was established by a preacher and former imam,Fethullah Gulen, who left Turkey in 1999 to avoid prosecution. Gulen currently lives in self-imposed exile in theUS. Formore on theGulenmovement, see Yavuz (2013) andTittensor (2014).

4. Here the term ‘conservative coalition’ is loosely used to refer to different fractions within theAKP with links to various conservative groups, brotherhoods, etc.

5. For the text of the declaration see the Emek ve Adalet (Labour and Justice) website: http://www.emekveadalet.org/arsivler/9716. On the Islamic socialist movement in Turkey and its support forthe Gezi protests see the interview with the theologian Eliac�ık (2014).

6. Erdogan blamed the ‘interest lobby’ for the Gezi Park protests (see Deliveli 2013). However,Deputy PrimeMinister Besir Atalay blamed the protests on the Jewish diaspora (see Gursel 2013).

7. The reluctance of the Kurdish left wing to join forces with the Gezi protesters was a notabledevelopment that could be attributed primarily to the ongoing Kurdish opening andnegotiations with the Kurdish leadership (see Gole 2013).

8. However, this strategy was most likely to succeed in a local election with a multiplicity ofcandidates running at different levels and making a homogeneous party image by definitionalmost impossible. This allowed the AKP leadership to avoid being held responsible for policyfailures and being portrayed as a corrupt incumbent party. However, this comfortingheterogeneity of political agendas will not be present in the presidential or general elections.

9. See ‘Turkish central bank raises lending rate to 12 per cent’, BBC News Business, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25939187; ‘Graft scandal hits Turkish economy by $100 bln – Deputy PM’,RT Report, 31 December 2013, http://rt.com/business/turkey-graft-probe-losses-009/; W.L.

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Watts, ‘Turkey rate hike stirs Black Wednesday memories’, Market Watch, 29 February 2014,

www.marketwatch.com/story/turkey-rate-hike-stirs-black-wednesday-memories-2014–01–29;

‘Turkey’s big rate hike to squeeze banks’ profits – Moody’s’, Reuters, 3 February 2014, http://

www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/03/turkey-moodys-banks-idUSL5N0L82IB20140203

10. Recent developments exemplifying the AKP’s inability to deal with bureaucracy include the

operation conducted by public prosecutors to determine whether the intelligence agency had

been smuggling weapons to Syria (see Tastekin 2014). Also, 96 judges and prosecutors were

changed following the corruption case and other cases against the AKP (see ‘96 judges,

prosecutors changed in Turkey’,World Bulletin, 22 January 2014, http://www.worldbulletin.net/?

aType¼haber&ArticleID ¼ 127382

11. The movement’s sophisticated and powerful network and its success created an image that

tended to eliminate competition, leading to opposition from competing conservative Islamic

brotherhoods as well as from the old-style state bureaucracy.

12. See Scott (2014) on the internet ban in Turkey. According to Turkish Statistical Institute data, as

of the first quarter of 2013 internet access was still restricted to about 50 per cent in Turkey; see

http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id¼13569. The influence of this ban on the

political choices of voters remains unclear.

13. Quite a number of these elections were contested in the aftermath of the elections but only a few

of these challenges were seen as worthy of consideration and even fewer electoral contests were

repeated on 1 June 2014 for reasons of legal irregularities and uncertainties about their

outcomes. A number of objections were made to the Higher Election Council (Yuksek Sec�im

Kurulu) concerning the provincial election results. See the map of objections at http://manset.at/

yerel-secim-2014-il-il-ilce-ilce-itiraz-haritasi/. Although the objections appear to have attracted

countrywide attention, the total number of objections that led to annulment and repeat of

elections was minimal. Compared with 2009, when 28 mayoral elections repeated, in 2014 only

13 mayoral elections were annulled and were repeated on 1 June 2014: http://www.ahaber.com.

tr/Gundem/2014/05/06/ysk-kesin-sonuclari-acikladi.

14. See http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yerel-secim-2014/ and http://secim2014.radikal.com.tr/. Although

the figures in the ensuing analyses do not correspond one to one to the official results, the

deviations from the official results in percentage vote shares are expected to be minimal.

15. The first roundof changes came inNovember 2012 (Lawnumber 6360) establishing 13 newGCMs

in cities with a total population above 750,000 inhabitants (Aydın, Denizli, Manisa,Mugla, Hatay,

Mardin, Sanlıurfa, Malatya, Van, Trabzon, Balıkesir, and Tekirdag). In March 2013 Ordu was

added to the list (Law number 6447) although the claim that it meets the above population

criterion does not seem to be correct (see http://tuikapp.tuik.gov.tr/adnksdagitapp/adnks.zul).

16. Both versions aim to grasp national support levels for the political parties. For this reason, either

provincial assembly vote shares in the 51 non-GCMs are used together with the mayoral results

in the 30 GCMs (version I), or the district assembly results are aggregated into a provincial

assembly result (version II). Hence, version I has only mayoral election results for the 30 GCM

and not the remaining 51 provinces.

17. For earlier work on regional patterns see Carkoglu (2000; 2009; 2011).

18. One could claim that local election results should be compared with local election results and

not with the general election results. However, local elections are shaped by candidate

characteristics and charisma that make these comparisons problematic. Rather, what is needed

here is to use those local election results which are more readily relevant for capturing the general

election dynamics and evaluating the evolution of partisan preferences in Turkey.

19. This odd pattern of higher participation in local elections may have several causes, including the

need for a mid-term vote of confidence or no confidence for the incumbent party in power and

the rising importance of local administrations in bringing about more and more important

services to the voters. This question needs further exploration.

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20. The ISSP–Turkey National identity module comprises 1,666 face-to-face interviews within anationwide representative sample. See Carkoglu and Kalaycıoglu (2014) for details of the sampleand main results.

21. At this juncture it is worth underling that only subjective evaluations, as reflected in nationwiderepresentative survey samples, will be used to gather information concerning the state of theeconomy. No objective indicator will be used for this purpose. Only those indicators as perceivedand evaluated by the public will be taken to shape the political chances of incumbent candidatesand their challengers.

22. The data for Figure 3 is from the 2002, 2007, and 2011 Turkish Election Studies and the rest arefrom yearly nationwide representative ISSP surveys all co-directed by Ali Carkoglu and ErsinKalaycıoglu.

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Barkey, H. (2013) ‘Icarus and Erdogan’s Corruption Scandal’, Foreign Policy, 27 December 2013,available online at: http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/27/icarus_and_erdogans_corruption_scandal. Accessed on June 15, 2014.

Baslevent, C., Kirmanoglu, H. & Senatalar, B. (2005) ‘Empirical investigation of party preferencesand economic voting in Turkey’, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 44, no. 4,pp. 547–562.

Baslevent, C., Kirmanoglu, H. & Senatalar, B. (2009) ‘Party preferences and economic voting inTurkey (now that the crisis is over)’, Party Politics, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 377–391.

Benhabib, S. (2014) ‘The new legitimation crises of Arab states and Turkey’, Philosophy and SocialCriticism, vol. 40, no. 4–5, pp. 349–358.

Carkoglu, A. (2000) ‘The geography of the April 1999 Turkish elections’, Turkish Studies, vol. 1, no. 1,pp. 149–171.

Carkoglu, A. (2007) ‘The nature of left–right ideological self-placement in the Turkish context’,Turkish Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 253–271.

Carkoglu, A. (2008) ‘Ideology or economic pragmatism?: profiling Turkish voters in 2007’, TurkishStudies, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 317–344.

Carkoglu, A. (2009) ‘The March 2009 local elections in Turkey: a signal for takers or the inevitablebeginning of the end for AKP?’, South European Society & Politics, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 295–316.

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Carkoglu, A. (2012a) ‘Economic evaluations vs. ideology: diagnosing the sources of electoral changein Turkey, 2002–2011’, Electoral Studies, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 513–521.

Carkoglu, A. (2012b) ‘Voting behaviour in Turkey’, inHandbook of Modern Turkey, eds M. Heper & S.Sayarı, Routledge, London & New York, pp. 160–170.

Carkoglu, A. & Kalaycıoglu, E. (2007) Turkish Democracy Today: Elections, Protest and Stability in anIslamic Society, I.B. Tauris, London.

Carkoglu, A. & Kalaycıoglu, E. (2009) The Rising Tide of Conservatism in Turkey, Palgrave, London.Carkoglu, A. & Kalaycıoglu, E. (2014) Turkiye’de ve DunyadaMilliyetc�ilik [Nationalism in Turkey and

the World], unpublished manuscript available at http://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/publication/ispp-2013-raporu-dunyada-ve-turkiyede-milliyetcilik/

Deliveli, E. (2013) ‘The Chapull-Jew (c�apulcu) interest rate lobby’,Hurriyet Daily News, June 10, 2013,available online at: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/the-chapull-jew-capulcu-interest-rate-lobby.aspx?pageID¼449&nID ¼ 48497&NewsCatID ¼ 430. Accessed on June 15, 2014.

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and the ideology of place’, Journal of Architecture and Urbanism, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 63–72.Gurcan, E. C. & Peker, E. (2014) ‘Turkey’s Gezi Park demonstrations of 2013: a Marxian analysis of

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turbulent Middle East’, Mediterranean Politics, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 203–219.Ozbudun, E. (2014) ‘AKP at the crossroads: Erdogan’s majoritarian drift’, South European Society and

Politics, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 155–167.Ors, E. R. (2014) ‘Genie in the bottle: Gezi Park, Taksim Square, and the realignment of democracy

and space in Turkey’, Philosophy & Social Criticism, vol. 40, no. 4–5, pp. 489–498.Scott, A. (2014) ‘Turkey’s YouTube and Twitter bans show a government in serious trouble’,

The Guardian, 28 March 2014.Tastekin, F. (2014) ‘Turkish intelligence service trucks reveal secrets’, Al Monitor, 20 January 2014,

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Yavuz, H. (2013) Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gulen Movement, Oxford University Press,New York.

Ali Carkoglu is currently a professor of political science at the Koc� University,

Istanbul. He received his PhD at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

His publications have appeared in journals including Democratization, European

Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies, Turkish Studies, New Perspectives on

Turkey, South European Society and Politics, Middle Eastern Studies, and Political

Studies and in edited volumes.

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