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Public choice and foreign affairs: Democracy and international relations in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Ersin Kalaycıoğlu
Ersin Kalaycıoğlu*
Affiliation:
Sabancı University, Orhanlı, Tuzla, 34956, İstanbul, kalaycie@sabanciuniv.edu
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Abstract

In a democracy it is through the process of voting that people find an opportunity to register their likes and dislikes of domestic and foreign policy decisions most effectively. In Turkey, the recent national elections on 22 July 2007 provided an opportunity to observe the nexus between voters’ choices and foreign policy issues. Questions pertaining to problems facing the country and the campaign issues fail to give any clue as to whether people paid attention to foreign policy in making their choices among the political parties of the country. However, a closer examination of the factors determining the vote indicates that, although party identification and satisfaction with the performance of the economy and the expectations of the government in managing the economy played major roles, attitudes towards the European Union (EU), nationalism, and globalization closely followed in magnitude those two factors in determining the voters’ party preferences across the left-right spectrum. While AKP supporters had the most favorable attitude towards the EU, MHP supporters appeared highly nationalistic, and CHP voters seemed most influenced by positive orientations to openness to the world.

Keywords

Turkish foreign relationsvoting behaviorEuropean Unionglobalismparty identificationeconomic voting
Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 40: Special Issue on Turkish Foreign Policy , Spring 2009 , pp. 57 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2006

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