The Context

The Literature

Elections are opportunities for citizens to assess the policies and track records of competitors for power and to select. Is that so?

• Post truth politics, social media and campaign discussions.
  • Bypassing the filtering process of traditional media and access voters directly: nearly half of citizens in developed democracies (Newman et al, 2016)
  • Established democracies: Recent election campaigns have been shot through with competing claims about possible fraud and other electoral impropriety (Birch and ElSafoury, 2017; Fogarty et al, 2015).
  • Emerging democracies and semi-authoritarian contexts: Allegations of fraud, campaign finance abuses, intimidation, violence and other forms of electoral manipulation are frequently used to seek to discredit electoral rivals, or to discredit the outcome of a race that has already been declared Diamond, 2010; Gromping, 2017; Hänska-Ahy and Shapour, 2013; Howard, 2010; Ikufor, 2010; Norris, Frank and Martínez i Coma, 2015).

While there is ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that they can be effective in shaping popular perceptions (Birch, 2010; Cantú and Garcia Ponte, 2015; Carreras and Irepoglu, 2013; Uscinski and Parent, 2014), there have been virtually no systematic assessment of when, how and why use is made of such strategies by electoral contenders.

The Turkish Case

• Although the number and impact of political actors have changed since that time, competing parties have frequently utilized strategies of discursive delegitimization for political ends.

  • 1950s CHP blamed DP for rigging the electoral register and using the state radio for DP’s propaganda material (Ulus, 1957).
  • 1960-1990: peaceful years
  • 1990s: HADEP and its successor parties in particular blamed the parties in power for election rigging and manipulation, 1999 Mersin case

• 2000-2017, turbulent times: Supreme Electoral Council (SEC), use and abuse of state resources for elections, TRT, attacks on election offices, killings etc.

The Problem

How do political actors use the allegations of wrong-doing in election campaigns?

• Allegations of fraud, campaign finance abuses, intimidation, violence and other forms of electoral manipulation are frequently used but there have been virtually no systematic assessment of when, how and why use is made of such strategies by electoral contenders

• Two alternative approaches can be identified:

  Governments accuse opposition for violence
  Opposition accuse governments for fraud

• What about the Turkish case?

  Any different pattern in an electo-authoritarian setting?

The Data

2174 observations, 43 variables, 2 elections

Coding example

HDP Leader Demirtaş said that the assaults on the HDP buildings are quite serious events and added: “we have retained our conventional wisdom [against these incidents]. A decision of confidentiality was issued on this investigation [by the court]. Why does one hide this investigation? … all of the happened events point the AKP.

Newspaper: Birgün
Election: Parliamentary
Date: 22 May 2015
Date Code: -15
Heading: Demirtas refutes Davutoglu: Perpetrator is not a member of DHKP-C
Type: News
Problem Type: Violence
Sender of the Message: HDP
Addressee of the Message: AKP

Distribution of Electoral Problems

Distrubution of News on Violence and Fraud

Share of Allegations Among Newspapers

Share of Allegations According to the Ideological Stance of Newspapers

Parties and Allegations

Inter-party Allegations

The Model

Dependent variables:
Counts of fraud and violence allegation news collapsed on data collection day.

Independent variables:
Party based dyadic combinations of senders and receivers of reported allegations

• Governing party: AKP
  
• Opposition parties: CHP MHP HDP

Control variables: Election types and news date
Possion regression model

The Model