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JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
A Research About the Youngs’ Voting Behavior in Local Elections: The Case of 2009, Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Election
Introduction
Elections are one of the indispensable processes of democratic life. Young people both
for the party organizations and the guarantee of future elections are essential part for the
future of the elections. In this context, it is important for young people to be aware of their
ideas about the election process and their efforts towards the elections. Exploring and
testing factors that influence young people’s voting behavior, especially in the elections,
will be beneficial to understand the voters’ profiles in the future elections.
Local elections are significant steps in measuring the perceptions of young voters towar-
ds elections. Choosing the local rulers in their own cities by young people is first signi-
fican step in learning political participation. In this process, young voters will be able to
investigate features, party plans, projects and promises of candidates, and then make
decisions about the candidates. Young people will have considerable experience in elec-
ting local leaders, and will more likely to be more active in other elections.
A local election was selected in the sample of Ankara in order to measure the voting be-
haviors of young people in the elections in this study. Damlapınar and Balcı (2014) have
been benefited from the work they have done following the 2009 Ankara local elections,
as this study also benefits from the same data since it is difficult to obtain data for local
elections. This analysis compared the study of Çavuşoğlu and Pekkaya (2016) and Dam-
lapınar and Balcı (2014) in explaining young voters’ behavior.
Initially, the opinions aboout election theories were included and voting behaviors of
young people were examined. A brief description of the young voter profiles and some
of the applications in Turkey were included. In the second part of the study, research
methodology, research questionnaires and hypotheses as well as research findings were
examined. Finally, supported and unsupported hypotheses were briefly explained and
suggestions for future studies were added.
Conceptual Framework: Voting Behavior
Voting is a political behaviour. Roberts (2004:324) summarizes this political process with
a proverb “It is impossible to govern without the consent of the governed”. Decision-ma-
king process represents the most important process affecting the behavior of voters.
Decision making has come to be defined as the choice of individual of several alternatives
(Çavuşoğlu and Pekkaya, 2016:19). Fülöp (2006) describes the decision making as a
study of identifying and selecting alternatives on the values and choices of the decision
maker. Also Fülop (2006) suggests eight (8) steps decision making process: a) defining
the problem b) determining requirements c) establishing goals d) identifiying alternatives
e) defining criteria f) selecting a decision making tool g) evaluating alternatives against
criteria h) validating solutions against problem statement. Decision-making process may
