Does the Electoral System Foster a Predominant Party System? Evidence from Turkey

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of the electoral system in making the Justice and Development Party (AKP) dominant. Drawing on Sartori’s framework, we first clarify the concept of a predominant party system. Second, we examine the impact of the electoral system on the emergence of a predominant party system in Turkey. Analysing election results, we argue that the electoral system fosters dominance in three ways. First, a combination of electoral formula, national threshold and district threshold leads to over‐representation of large parties and under‐representation of small ones. Second, the fear of a wasted vote due to the high threshold prompts voters to support their second‐best option, which concentrates the votes among large parties. Finally, the electoral system increases electoral turnout rates by extending polarization.

Political climate and regional well-being in Turkey

“…A related dimension is the transition of AKP during its successive election periods. Moving from a dominant to hegemonic party, AKP stands as a suitable example to investigate the clientelistic implementations and vote-buying patterns (Cinar, 2016;Arslantas et al, 2020;2020b). Referring to the resource theory (Greene, 2007), the predominant incumbent is eager to use public resources and politicizes the bureaucracy to reproduce electoral dominance (Magaloni, 2006;Szwarcberg, 2015).…”

“…Turkey is a developing country with sizable political flux during the last decades and has been governed by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) since 2002. Pork-barreling and clientelist behavior of the incumbent party has been widely examined (See Aytaç (2014); Luca and Rodríguez-Pose (2015); Çarkoglu and Aytaç (2015); Arslantas et al (2020) among others and prior literature section for the detailed discussion). While there is an overall consensus on distributive politics based on the incumbent's strongholds, less has been examined on the role of political ideologies and the extent of its fragmentation for the regional well-being.…”

A Reassessment of the Turkish Party System

“…In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature on the Turkish party system (Çarkoğlu, 1998;Özbudun, 2000;Sayarı, 2002;Sayarı, 2007;Çarkoğlu, 2011;Gümüşçü, 2013;Ayan-Musil, 2015;Sayarı, 2016;Arslantaş, Arslantaş, & Kaiser, 2020). However, since most studies were based on inadequate empirical data and limited to the 1990s and the 2000s, they have generally focused on the predominant party system and failed to critically review discussions on party systems.…”

“…For the relationship between the electoral system and the party system in Turkey, see(Arslantaş, Arslantaş, & Kaiser, 2020).…”

How does clientelism foster electoral dominance? Evidence from Turkey

“… 1. For fresh discussions on the emergence of the predominant party system in Turkey, see Arslantaş and Arslantaş (2020); Arslantaş et al (2020). …”