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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
mic approach is to know the interests of the electorate, to evaluate a party / candidate
and to vote for the candidate / party that will ultimately serve voters’ interests (Çavuşoğlu
and Pekkaya, 2016:22; Önder, 2011c).
Rational Choice Approach
The basic assumption in this approach is that voters should take care of their interests
in their aims, wishes and desires, and then vote for the party or candidate. While in this
approach voters are individuals who seek more information and use them in decision ma-
king; in the psychological approach, voting is a defensive attitude towards concrete data
and information (Damlapınar and Balcı, 2014:109). The rational choice assumptions of
economics and politics argue that in making decisions and taking actions, a person seeks
to maximize personal utility (Frederickson and others, 2012:198). When the voter receives
full and free information in this approach, his/her behaviors are shaped as follows.
•
The electorate compares the performance of the current government in political power
with the performance of the prospective government of opposition opponents. The
electorate tends towards a superior party by evaluating the difference between the
two parties.
•
The electorate will use the vote to the preferred party in a two-party system. In mul-
ti-party systems voters use their vote to a party either examines the other voters and
gives them to the party if they are sure they will win, or if they are not sure, they give
the closest competitor.
•
The voter has developed a long-lasting preference and if s/he does not have the chan-
ce to win the party s/he wants, he/she votes the same party as an investment for future
elections.
•
Voters who evaluate a ruling party and a opposing party in the same position may
either abstain from parties that cannot win againts each other if they do not make a
decision or compare the activities of the ruling party with those of the previous party
(Damlapınar and Balcı, 2014:109-110). For example, it is plausible to argue that Turkish
voters have the tradition of evaluating the performances of political parties, such as
any other Western type democracy (Toros, 2012:814). If the voter finds the ruling party
successful, s/he uses the preference in this direction, and if he/she finds it unsuccess-
ful, he/she turns to the opposition (Damlapınar and Balcı, 2014:109-110).
Topic Voting and Ideological Preference Approach
In the topic voting approach, voters are primarily concerned with evaluating candidates
based on some of the issues that are on the agenda. Therefore, voters will vote for the
overlapping party on their own terms (Çavuşoğlu and Pekkaya, 2016:22). The topic ap-
