Conceptualization and Methodology

Conceptualization and MethodologyThe two preceding chapters, which reviewed the literature on electoral change both in general and in Turkey, revealed that (1) in general, social cleavages and values accounted for long-term volatility, and retrospective voting for short-term volatility, and that (2) in Turkey, the dominant framework is broadly socioeconomic, and few studies have explicitly used the social-cleavage, values, or retrospective-voting approach.There is a need to fill this theoretical and empirical void in these areas of research in Turkey.Accordingly, this study adopted the social-cleavage and retrospective-voting approaches.This chapter explains the framework of the study, the dependent and independent variables, the main hypotheses, the analytical method, and the data sources.In brief, the study uses statistical analysis to investigate, at the provincial and national levels, how social cleavages and economic change affect electoral volatility in Turkey.The object of the study is not individual voters but rather groups of voters that share a socioeconomic environment.