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Now showing 1 - 10 of 11
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 4
    Citation - Scopus: 5
    Forecasting Turkish Local Elections
    (Elsevier, 2012) Toros, Emre
    The literature on political forecasting is large, although the main focus of this literature is limited to a number of countries. Nevertheless, and despite the major differences between political systems, scientific forecasting work has proved to be broadly possible, with noteworthy extensions to new countries. This article extends the literature further by developing a new forecasting model for local elections in Turkey. The basic motivation of this article is to test the usefulness of political forecasting in the contexts of alternative democratic settings. Turkey, in that sense, seems to be an interesting case for a number of reasons. First, the Turkish Republic has been a multi-party democracy since the mid-1940s. Although it has been interrupted by three military coups, the party and election system in Turkey has brought real alternations in the government starting from very early years of the multi-party system. So, it is plausible to argue that Turkish voters have the tradition of evaluating the performances of political parties, as in any other Western-type democracy. That is to say, the dynamics of evaluations of political parties in Turkey follow a similar pattern to other contemporary democracies, being driven by economic and political forces. The main contribution of this analysis is the introduction of an explicit model, which can forecast the impact of economic and political variables across local elections in Turkey by using reliable, public, and macro-level data. In particular, this study offers a new forecasting model which tries to forecast the Justice and Development Party's (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) vote share in 81 cities. (C) 2012 International Institute of Forecasters. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
  • Master Thesis
    Sivil Toplum ve Demokratik Konsolidasyon; Türkiye Örneği
    (2015) Aydın, Tuğba; Toros, Emre
    Bu çalışma Türkiye'de demokratik konsolidasyonun sağlanmasında sivil toplumun rolünü incelemektedir. Çalışma, sivil toplumun teorik ve kavramsal içeriğini inceleyerek demokratik konsolidasyon ile olan ilişkisini analiz etmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, sivil toplumun demokratik konsolidasyon ile olan ilişkisini Türkiye örneği üzerinde incelemektir.
  • Conference Object
    Short Term Pragmatism or Long Term Ideologies: Identifying the Motivations of Voting Behaviour in Turkey With Sem
    (Singapore Management & Sports Science inst Pte Ltd, 2013) Toros, Emre
    The main objective of this essay is to identify the motivations of voting behavior in Turkey as a function of long-term ideological and short-term pragmatic concerns. The following analysis reveals the fact the importance of these factors differ significantly for the Turkish voter and hence for the competing political parties. More specifically, where the AKP voters prioritize short term pragmatist evaluations, CHP and MHP voters utilize long term ideological assessments.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 2
    Citation - Scopus: 2
    Social and Economic Indicators of Household Income in Turkey: Does Ethnicity Matter?
    (Springer, 2018) Toros, Emre; Cilasun, Seyit; Toros, Aykut
    In Turkey, the GDP per capita of eastern regions, where the Kurdish population is dense, is significantly lower than that of the rest of the country. The aim of this paper is to provide a quantitative analysis to investigate the contribution of household characteristics and regional disparities on racial/ethnic inequalities in household income, particularly across Turks and Kurds. Based on the results of regression-based decomposition analyses, there exist significant income differences between Turks and Kurds. However, this difference significantly diminishes if the household head is working. It is also observed that the household income increases with education, while decreases with migration and being settled in economically disadvantaged regions. Results also indicate that differential returns to Turks and Kurds on observable characteristics are lower in higher income quintiles
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 3
    Citation - Scopus: 5
    Social Media Use and Political Participation: the Turkish Case
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2022) Toros, Secil; Toros, Emre
    The freedom of media is an essential component for democratic settings; however, in some contexts, citizens experience several barriers to enjoy this right in full. Replacing conventional media channels, social media is becoming an indispensable medium to express and discuss politics in such environments. Yet, there is little consensus in the literature about how social media relates to offline political participation, especially in settings where citizens do not experience media freedom in full. By using survey data that has been collected after the Turkish general election of 2018, this article aims to display the relationship between social media use and offline political participation. The analysis reveals offline political participation is related to sharing political views online and exposure to alternative political ideas.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 11
    Citation - Scopus: 11
    The Relationship Between Islam and Democracy in Turkey: Employing Political Culture as an Indicator
    (Springer, 2010) Toros, Emre
    During the last decade the agenda of local and global politics is heavily marked by the encounter of two powerful currents, namely democracy and political Islam. On the one hand Islam as a religion itself is facing a cultural dialectic between a modern and an authentic form, producing a synthesis which is only to be criticized again by a new radical antithesis. Within that framework political Islam is perceived to be a tool for this current antithesis, attacking the states for impiety and materialism. Democracy, on the other hand, is becoming dominant as a criterion of good government, the "only game in town", with its inherent complexity which reveals itself in each particular context. The two currents are not necessarily irreconcilable, but they produce a number of different effects on each other whenever they meet. The fundamental contention of this article is to demonstrate this relationship within the Turkish setting.
  • Article
    Kulturkampf to Partykampf? Democratic Backsliding and Democratic Satisfaction in Turkey
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2025) Toros, Secil; Zeybek Kabakci, Gokce; Toros, Emre
    This article examines why satisfaction with democracy can remain comparatively high in Turkey despite sustained democratic erosion, focusing on the joint role of cultural conflict and partisan identity. It advances the concept of Partykampf, a partisan-cultural fusion that conditions democratic attitudes and satisfaction in this particular case. Interaction models show that satisfaction is not explained by culture or partisanship alone: alignment with the governing bloc strongly amplifies the positive effect of traditional-religious cultural alignment and strong partisan identity, whereas equally strong opposition partisans report markedly lower satisfaction. We conclude that Partykampf offers a powerful lens for understanding how legitimacy perceptions persist during backsliding by reframing democracy through partisan success rather than procedural standards.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 10
    Citation - Scopus: 12
    Forecasting Elections in Turkey
    (Elsevier, 2011) Toros, Emre
    This paper proposes a model for forecasting elections in Turkey. In doing so, this study is based on three theoretical premises: first, that the voters reward or punish parties according to their performances relative to the macroeconomic conditions; second, that the popularity of the political parties in Turkey are closely connected to their performances in local elections; and third, that the centre-periphery distinction affects the fortunes of the political parties in Turkey. The contribution of this analysis is the introduction of an explicit model on which can forecast the impact of economic and political variables on the elections in Turkey by using reliable, public and macro level data. Our findings show that the dynamics of the evaluation of political parties in Turkey follow a similar pattern to those of contemporary democracies, being driven by both economic and political factors. " ... why did AKP win? There cannot be a scientific and sociological explanation of this." Ozdemir Ince, 17 August 2007, Hurriyet, emphasis added. (C) 2011 International Institute of Forecasters. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
  • Conference Object
    Analyzing Political Leadership: The Case of Recep Tayyip Erdogan
    (World Acad Union-world Acad Press, 2010) Toros, Emre
    Even though there is a towering literature on political leadership, the common factor of this inventory is its' a-contextual, individually based and atomistic character. As an attempt to address these limitations, this article will offer an account to complement the existing literature by locating the problematic in a defined context. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to utilize the concepts of responsiveness and responsibility for the assessment of political leadership. As a case study, Recep Tayyip Erdogan who holds the office of prime ministry of Turkish Republic since 2003 will be analysed.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 5
    Citation - Scopus: 9
    Social Indicators and Voting: the Turkish Case
    (Springer, 2014) Toros, Emre
    The aim of this article is to set out the various explanations of voting behaviour in Turkey. Its principal intellectual motivation is to present the political and social indicators that shape voting in such a way as to explain how an activity which is so crucial for democratic life is also based upon voters' values and surrounding political context. Although the number of empirical work on voting behaviour in Turkey is increasing there is a considerable room for testing alternative variables and research tools in order to expand the academic knowledge on the problematic. Findings ratified that the political and personal values coupled with the other social factors have considerable impact on the voting behaviour in Turkey. Additionally this research also proved that these factors work differently for the competing political parties. Hence the contribution of this study is the introduction of an explicit analysis on the impact of different social and political factors that are salient in voting behaviour and magnitudes of these factors on different political parties by using a public database. Thus this study will not only uncover the relevancy of the variables in the literature for Turkish voters but also it will highlight the meaning and significance of these factors for different political parties.