Patterns of political participation in post-1980 Turkey

Abstract

This study analyses the socio-economic dynamics of political participation in Turkey after 1980 and, in this context, tests the hypothesis of the socio-economic mobilisation theory. The project is an investigation of the question of "how the socioeconomic development affects political participation in conditions of post-1980 Turkey?" and its focus is on the society rather than the person. The study is based on statistical interpretation of the aggregate level data on socio-economic indicators. The data are an~lysed from a geographical perspective. The results underline several important conclusions. First, they support the findings of previous stlldies on political participation in pre-1980 Turkey, and thus demonstrate that the socio-economic developments in Turkey after 1980 have no specific effect on the patterns of political participation. Second, they show that the three types of elections in Turkey, namely general elections, referendums and municipal elections, have different socio-economic dynamics of their own. Finally, the results suggest that regional differences play an important role in political participation in Turkey: the east of Turkey shows significantly lower rates of participation in elections as well as referendums.