Political Miniature in Urban Administration: A District and Political Party Based Analysis in Türkiye
Chapter from the book:
Yılmaz,
V.
(ed.)
2024.
Current Urban Research.
Synopsis
Political actors display a success and goal-oriented approach in elections, which are the essential element of democracy. Analysing voter behaviour, developing propaganda arguments and identifying candidates play a key role in electoral success. A healthy determination of voter behaviour will also contribute to the normative character of democracy. Identifying voter behaviours and motives with practical and up-to-date methods and developing political arguments in line with them are among the main interests of political actors. This current need and demand brings academic interest to the subject and the topic of voter behaviour has gradually become the subject of academic studies at an increasing rate. The concept of political miniature, which is the subject of the study, can be defined as the state of being in a similar situation between the upper administrative unit (country-wide, province, district) and its hierarchical sub-unit (district, town, village) in the context of the distribution of election results (parliamentary, presidential, referendum); participation rate, political parties, candidates and results (yes and no in terms of referendum). The determination of political miniatures focuses on the function of enabling the determination of macro political preferences according to voter behaviour in sub-administrative units, which are easier to conduct field research than large-scale administrative units. In the analyses conducted to determine Türkiye's district-based political miniature, Kocaeli province's Körfez district and Tekirdağ province's Kapaklı district come to the fore, but it is determined that Kocaeli province's Körfez district, which yielded relatively significant results, is the district-based political miniature of Türkiye in general. The study also aims to determine the province-based political miniatures of the political parties represented in the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye in the last fifteen years and participating in the elections. In this context, it has been determined that Burdur province for the Justice and Development Party, Kocaeli province for the Republican People's Party, Artvin province for the Nationalist Movement Party, and Elazığ province for the Peoples' Democratic Party can be considered as political miniatures for the relevant political parties.