Socio-demographic determinants of the support for Turkey's Justice and Development Party

Abstract

Using official census data for the province of Istanbul, we identify the determinants of the support for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) which has been in power in Turkey since 2002. District-level socio-demographic indicators such as the gender gap in education and the mean age - which are expected to proxy for social conservatism and the fertility rate. respectively - perform remarkably well as predictors of the party's vote share. The econometric findings are in line with the hypothesis that the AKP has benefited from the existing living conditions of the urban population, especially in peripheral metropolitan areas, and has been particularly successful in identifying the worldviews and addressing the needs of conservative voters many of whom are first or second generation migrants.