Retrospective Voting at the Macro Level

Retrospective Voting at the Macro LevelWhile the Turkish party system has recently become solidly anchored to major social cleavages, as shown in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, total electoral volatility has not declined correspondingly.This is because the electoral volatility stemming from retrospective voting has increased, particularly since the 1990s (Figure 3-1 and Figure 3-2).The retrospective voting model in general assumes that the electorate evaluates the incumbent based on economic performance in the recent past, as shown by Section 1.3 of Chapter 1.Does this model apply to Turkey?This chapter investigates the relationship between changes in macroeconomic variables (real per capita GNP, unemployment, and inflation) and changes in support for the incumbent party/parties.The first part of the chapter discusses the choice and compilation of dependent and independent variables.Second, a time-series analysis is performed on the retrospective voting model thus derived.The third part tests individual elections using the cross-sectional model of retrospective voting, with the province as the unit of analysis.