Abstract:

Determination of voter behavior in the scope of political marketing is the most important factor in terms of political powers and parties at present. Voters are influenced by a lot of factors among which economic factors are the most important ones. The view that economical factors affect voter preference is known as the economical voting theory in the literature. In this context, voters assess the past economic performances of political parties and their possible future economical performances and reflect their preferences accordingly. In the scope of this theory, voters reward existing political parties with their votes at the ballot box due to positive economical developments while punishing them for negative economical developments. The aim of this study is to reveal the importance of voter preferences within the scope of political marketing and determine the economical factors that influence voter preferences in Turkey. In this context, the effect of economical variables on vote rates was investigated through the econometric model. Within the scope of the analysis, data between 1990 and 2019 from Turkey were used. First, the stationarity levels of the variables used in the study were determined by Extended Dickey-Fuller and Philips-Peron unit root tests. Second, the short-term and long-term relationships between the variables were tested with the autoregressive distributed lag bounds test. Finally, the Todo-Yamamoto causality test was used to determine the causality relationship between the variables used in the study. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the effect of the rate of gross domestic product per capita on the vote in the short and long term is positive but statistically insignificant. In addition, another important finding of the study is that the effect of the inflation rate on the vote is negative and statistically significant in both the short and long term. Finally, as a result of the causality test, it was determined that there is a one-way causality relationship from inflation to vote rate.

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