Inter-party Vote Movements in Turkey: The Role of Economic Evaluations

Abstract Using data drawn from a nationwide voter tendencies survey conducted shortly before the July 2007 parliamentary election in Turkey, inter-party vote movements during the 2002-2007 period are investigated with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) as the focal point. A descriptive analysis relying on two and four-way partitions of the data set reveals that, in comparison to the relatively small group of ‘deserters’ from the party, the ‘newcomers’ to the AKP are younger, more female, more satisfied with the performance of the economy, and more likely to be pro-EU membership. The data also show that AKP supporters are less educated and less concerned about the threats to secularism than the rest of the voters. The key finding of the econometric work is that economic evaluations – especially retrospective ones – have a strong association with the party choice in the 2007 elections. Arabic Abstract: