How Clientelistic Parties Go Programmatic: The Strategic Logic of Responsiveness in a Least Likely Case (the AKP of Turkey)

Abstract

Policymakers in democratic systems are expected to respond to the issue preferences of citizens and fulfill their electoral mandate as this responsiveness is central to democratic theory. Most empirical research on opinion-policy/program-policy linkage found a significant relationship between opinion and policy as well as program and policy. However, these studies have concentrated on a few developed Western countries with programmatic party systems. I focus on an emerging democracy with a highly clientelistic party system, Turkey, and address the following questions: Are policymakers' priorities driven by public opinion? Do parties take into account their electoral mandate in the legislature? To answer these questions, I use a novel dataset of parliamentary activities and public priorities in Turkey. I also offer an alternative method to measure party priorities which proves superior to the currently used measures.