The Impact of Nationalist Action Party’s Realignment with The Ruling Party on the Demography and Ideological Self-Placement of the Nap Voters: Comparison of the (June) 2015 and the 2018 Parliamentary Elections

Abstract

The Nationalist Action Party had followed a fierce opposition against the single party government of the Justice and Development Party as of the 2002 November elections. the NAP was strongly opposed to JDP-backed policies concerning democratization, Europeanization (EU Accession process) and the Cyprus disputes. Nevertheless, the NAP realigned itself with the ruling Justice and Development Party after November 2015 parliamentary elections. Following the failed coup attempt of July 2016, the parties entered into a process of political cooperation. They formed an electoral alliance for the 2017 national referendum and 2018 parliamentary and presidential elections, under the name of “Cumhur Alliance.” Moreover, the alliance turned into a quasi-coalition government helping the JDP in securing the parliamentary majority. In spite of this change in the NAP’s position vis-à-vis the ruling party no analysis has been made to answer whether the demographic and ideological characteristics of voters supporting the NAP has also cehanged. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature on the electoral behaviour of the Turkish electorate. Considering the typical radical right voters in European democracies, this study analyses the potential impact of the change in the NAP’s stance on the overlap between radical right voters in Europe and Turkey. Using CSES dataset and employing a binomial logistic regression analysis the study compares the demographic and ideological characteristics of the NAP’s voters in the June 2015 and 2018 parliamentary elections. Classifying the Nationalist Action Party as a member of the radical right party family, this analysis begins by making the discussion on the demographic and ideological characteristics of radical right voters in European democracies. This discussion is followed by the formulation of hypotheses that are to be tested with respect to NAP’s voters through the binomial logistic regression analysis. The analysis concludes that electoral profiles of voters who voted for NAP in 2018 elections were closer to those of typical radical right voters in Western European countries than those of voters who supported the party in the June 2015 elections.