Economic Voting in Turkey: Perceptions, Expectations, and the Party Choice

Following a brief summary of macroeconomic developments since 2001 and a review of the economic voting literature in the Turkish context, we examine the effect of economic evaluations on the likelihood of Turkish voters to opt for the currently-ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). In addition to several socio-demographic characteristics and religiosity, our empirical model – estimated using micro data from a 2014 electoral tendency survey – includes both retrospective and prospective economic voting variables. Binary logit estimates provide strong evidence in favour of the idea that perceptions and expectations regarding the economy have a considerable impact on the party choice, especially when the voter holds the government responsible for the recent changes in economic conditions. Our findings also suggest that as long as the proportion of voters who are satisfied with their economic conditions is reasonably large, the AKP will remain at the centre stage of Turkish politics for at least another term.