Electoral Atlas of Turkey (Coming soon)

Pablo Beramendi, Berfin Baydar, Asli Cansunar

The literature on Middle East politics often centers on the enduring authoritarianism of the region, with many studies focusing on the mechanisms that sustain non-democratic regimes. Although authoritarianism and the Middle East are often perceived as closely linked, the region actually has a rich history of engagement with democratic practices and elections. Despite this, there remains a significant gap in the availability of datasets that allow for a detailed study of the Middle East's complex experiences with democratic elections. This scarcity of data has limited scholars' ability to fully explore the region's political diversity and the various factors that have shaped its democratic experiments.

Turkey serves as a notable example. Turkey's democratic journey has been marked by periods of significant political transformation, military interventions, and evolving party dynamics. Since the establishment of the multiparty system in 1946, Turkish elections have played a pivotal role in shaping the nation's political landscape, reflecting the aspirations and challenges of its diverse electorate. However, historical election data, especially at the micro level, remain fragmented and underexplored, limiting a comprehensive analysis of voter behavior, political participation, and the evolution of democracy in Turkey. Existing data, particularly for elections before 1991, are either scattered, incomplete, or lack the necessary granularity being available only at higher levels of aggregation, which fails to capture the micro-level dynamics. The absence of such comprehensive data limits the scope and accuracy of research in Turkish political behavior, voter demographics, and historical political analysis.

To date, no project has systematically collected microlevel election results for the entire electoral history of Turkey. This project seeks to address this gap by systematically compiling village-level election results from Turkey's entire electoral history. By making these data accessible to researchers, the project not only preserves a crucial aspect of Turkish political heritage but also enables a deeper understanding of the country's democratic development. This comprehensive data set will serve as an invaluable tool for scholars analyzing the impact of electoral processes on Turkey's political trajectory, contributing to the broader narrative of democratic resilience and transformation in the region. Furthermore, this open-source data effort will be an invaluable resource for researchers looking to understand the connections between religion and voting, the ethnic roots of electoral behavior, tribal relations, and sectarian differences in voting patterns across the Middle East.

The project's aim is not only to compile comprehensive village-level electoral data but also to make these data accessible through an open-source website. This platform will feature detailed election results, including the number of voters, valid and invalid votes, and votes for each party at the village level. By providing this level of granularity, the website will enable users to explore microlevel electoral dynamics that are often obscured in aggregated data. In addition, the website will include GIS analysis tools, allowing researchers and the public to visualize geographically electoral patterns. This spatial analysis capability will enhance the understanding of regional voting behaviors, political shifts, and the impact of local factors on electoral outcomes, making the project a valuable resource for both academic research and public engagement with Turkey's democratic history. We will also develop an R package, tentatively named \textbf{elecTR}, which will provide users with tidyverse-ready data frames of microlevel electoral results, optionally including simple feature geometry.