Reports
Discussion Papers
No.908 Welfare, Corruption, and the Economic Vote of Punishment: The Turkish Case
November 2023
ABSTRACT
Do social security and corruption control buffer electoral punishment for poor economic conditions? Previous studies have shown that both generous social security and corruption control mitigate the impact of economic conditions on incumbent votes. However, whether these two noneconomic issues lessen punishment or reward behaviours or both is unclear. Using a dataset from a 2018 post-election survey in Turkey, this study shows that social security weakens reward behaviour but not punishment behaviour, whereas corruption control weakens punishment behaviour but not reward behaviour. When economic grievances dominate public opinion, corruption control is more critical for incumbent support than social security provision.
Keywords: Economic voting, Social security, Corruption, Grievance asymmetry, Turkey
PDF available at http://hdl.handle.net/2344/0002000107
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