Unpacking the Drivers of Unconventional Political Participation in Turkey

Political participation is typically associated with conventional forms of participation, but in recent years academics have been increasingly interested in unconventional political participation due to declining turnout rates across European democracies. Unconventional forms of participation in politics are quite freely practiced in democratic countries, however, it remains unclear which factors influence unconventional modes of participation in non- democratic countries. The aim of this thesis is to examine the individual and context-level factors that may influence the patterns of unconventional political participation in Turkey. For this purpose, drawing on the civic voluntarism model and the political opportunity structure as the theoretical backbone of the study, regression analyses are conducted using World Values Surveys for the years 1996, 2001, 2007, 2011, and 2018 to see how the impact of various individual-level variables and the rule of law index changes over time. The...Show morePolitical participation is typically associated with conventional forms of participation, but in recent years academics have been increasingly interested in unconventional political participation due to declining turnout rates across European democracies. Unconventional forms of participation in politics are quite freely practiced in democratic countries, however, it remains unclear which factors influence unconventional modes of participation in non- democratic countries. The aim of this thesis is to examine the individual and context-level factors that may influence the patterns of unconventional political participation in Turkey. For this purpose, drawing on the civic voluntarism model and the political opportunity structure as the theoretical backbone of the study, regression analyses are conducted using World Values Surveys for the years 1996, 2001, 2007, 2011, and 2018 to see how the impact of various individual-level variables and the rule of law index changes over time. The findings indicate that more educated and politically interested citizens as well as members of civil society organizations have a greater likelihood to engage in unconventional political participation.Show less

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Unpacking the Drivers of Unconventional Political Participation in Turkey