Voter Sophistication and Voting Behavior in Türkiye

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

The objective of this study is to test MacDonald, Rabinowitz and Listhaug’s (1995) argument suggesting a link between voter sophistication and two models of spatial theory of party competition: the proximity model and the directional model. They argued that as the proximity model is more cognitively demanding than the directional one, it provides a more eligible formula for sophistication of voters. Although they did not find support, we suggest that this finding may derive from their case selection and methodological preferences. In a non-Western country, where there are striking and widespread implications of differences between education levels, a different picture may emerge. We also decided to use an alternative measurement for political sophistication: multiplication of education and actual political knowledge, which we believe is a better proxy for sophistication. We employed Comparative Study of Election Systems (CSES) data of 2015 for Türkiye. The final dataset holds answers of 249 respondents, which are voters of the four most-voted political parties in Türkiye: the Justice and Development Party (JDP), the Republican People’s Party (RPP), the National Action Party (NAP), and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The findings partly confirm the original argument to understand voting preferences of those who are politically sophisticated.