From Mobilized to Autonomous Voting

From Mobilized to Autonomous VotingThis chapter lays the ground for the main arguments by scrutinizing the nature of electoral participation in Turkey.The concept of electoral volatility implicitly assumes that voters cast ballots of their own will, autonomously.In the rural areas of Turkey, however, "mobilized" voting was traditionally prevalent, according to Nuhrat (1971) and zbudun (1976). 1 Mobilized voting, as explicitly phrased by zbudun for Turkey, refers to either induced or deferential voting for local notables.For the interpretation of electoral volatility, therefore, it is very important to determine whether voting is relatively autonomous or mobilized.Large electoral volatility under autonomous voting implies weak voter loyalty (or trust) toward political parties.Under mobilized voting, on the other hand, electoral volatility does not reflect party loyalty to a great degree.In practice, voting behavior involves both autonomous and mobilized motives.In this study, autonomous and mobilized voting are used in relative terms, and mobilized voting in particular is limited to the above sense.The main contention of this chapter is that electoral participation in Turkey over the last four decades has become more autonomous and less mobilized.What follows in this chapter is first an overview of voter turnout at the national level during the 1961-2002 period and an explanation of the major reasons for quantitative and qualitative changes in voter turnout.Second, the relationship between socioeconomic development and voter turnout is examined at the provincial level for the general elections during the above period.This is because zbudun argued that a positive relationship between socioeconomic development and electoral participation in a province indicated autonomous participation whereas a negative relationship suggested mobilized participation.Third, in order to supplement the second inquiry, another indicator, party competition, is used to measure autonomous/mobilized participation at the subprovince level over time.