| National Elections in Turkey: People, Politics, and the Party System What determines voting behavior in Turkey? At a time when the center-right, religious-conservative leadership of the Justice and Development Party has dominated government and the political scene in Turkey--so much so that the democratic credentials of the regime have come into question--many have sought to understand what undergirds this party's success at the polls. While many scholars have argued that elections in Turkey over time can be effectively and simply explained by static social or cultural cleavages, Wuthrich challenges these assertions with a framework that carefully attends to patterns of strategic vote-getting behavior in elections by political parties and their leaders. F. Michael Wuthrich is assistant director of the Center for Global and International Studies at the University of Kansas. |