THE EFFECTS OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS IMMIGRANTS ON PARTY PREFERENCE: THE CASE OF TURKEY

Abstract

The immigration of around 3.750 million refugees to Turkey since 2011 due to the Syrian Civil War has raised questions about the attitudes toward immigrants in Turkey. Although previous studies have analyzed various dimensions of attitudes towards immigrants, the effect of these attitudes on party preference is relatively understudied in Turkey compared to other countries. Purpose: This study analyzes the effect of attitudes towards immigrants on party preference in Turkey using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (2019) dataset collected in 2018 using quantitative methods. Methodology: Different logistic regression models were established to test the impact of attitudes towards immigrants on party preference. Based on the previous studies on Turkish politics that measure party preference, the center-periphery cleavage (religiosity and self-positioning on the left-right spectrum), economic voting, and demographic variables are included as control variables in the regression models. Findings: The results illustrate that as negative attitudes towards immigrants increase, the probability of voting for the Good Party increases while voting for the AK Party decreases. While there is a positive relationship between the voting for the Republican People's Party and anti-immigration after controlling for demographic variables, this effect becomes statistically insignificant when controlled for religiosity and self-positioning on the left-right spectrum. Finally, when economic evaluations are included in the regression, the effect of attitudes towards immigrants on party preference becomes statistically insignificant in all models. Originality: In Turkey, negative attitudes towards immigrants are pretty high compared to other countries in the dataset. However, the weak effect of anti-immigration on party preference emerges as an essential question to be analyzed.