Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

In Turkey economic recession hardly makes the news

Alper Yağcı and Cem Oyvat 28th March 2019

As Turkey goes to the polls amid recession, Erdoğan’s control over the media may be his strongest asset.

Erdoğan

Alper Yağcı

On March 31st, Turkey will have local elections. In a country with weak local government, these will not change much in people’s lives. But they will serve as a barometer of the political mood. Will Turkey’s economic troubles cost the incumbents votes, signalling a tough time ahead for the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan?

Our recent research suggests that there will be a loss of votes, but probably not as great as could be expected. This is because government control over the news media limits voters’ understanding of the economic situation and makes it difficult to imagine alternatives to the current administration.

Economic voting is an issue debated in Turkey. Since Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 for the first time, a part of the opposition has accused government supporters of being enamoured of a populist leader, totally disconnected from what happens to the economy. In fact the opponents would have more reason to complain about their own economic experience.

Erdoğan

Cem Oyvat

A twin development which has characterised the Turkish economy under AKP rule has been, first, a steady rise in the real minimum wage and, secondly, a convergence of salaries towards the minimum wage, probably because of a decrease in the education premium. Opposition voters in Turkey tend to come from better-educated groups, so they may be right to complain that wages for skilled jobs in the modern sector are looking increasingly like the minimum and incomparably low next to what property speculation can generate.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

Between 2010 and 2017, according to official data, the bottom 40 per cent or so of the population, in addition to a small group at the top, saw the highest proportional increases in their incomes. Those on upper-middle incomes also saw an increase but much less.

Surveys show that it is precisely this latter group which tends to vote for the secular opposition. In other words, government supporters, even if they are attracted by Erdoğan’s charisma or his religious rhetoric, have also seen their economic aspirations relatively well served during his terms. This has been a significant consideration behind their voting behaviour.

Deteriorating economy

Indeed, there is evidence that in Turkey economic slowdown costs incumbents votes. Following the global recession, the AKP vote share plunged in the 2009 local elections. The next two years witnessed rapid recovery, such that before the 2011 election the incumbents were able to campaign on the idea that Turkish people had never had it better. The party achieved its highest vote share ever.

Growth was slower before the June 2015 election and this cost the AKP its absolute majority in the parliament—only thanks to a snap election, following security threats, was the majority regained. In the June 2018 election, again, a deteriorating economy translated into a substantial loss for the party in terms of vote share.

So, Erdoğan’s AKP is not an exception to the workings of the economic voting mechanism—and the situation today looks dire. During the last year, non-agricultural unemployment has increased by over 3 per cent, to hit 14.9 per cent, and the inflation rate stands at 20 per cent. Moreover, industrial production declined throughout the last quarter of 2018, and data on business confidence hint that a recession in manufacturing continued into early 2019.

These would be worrying signs for Erdoğan and his party. Even in Russia, which has a regime that is much less competitive than Turkey’s, we know that Vladimir Putin’s approval rating follows voter satisfaction with the economy.

Media control

But one factor that elected autocrats like Erdoğan and Putin are introducing into the equation is government control over news media, which limits what voters can hear about the economy. Pushing media groups into submission with carrots and sticks, Turkey’s president has created a media milieu mostly unwilling to criticise the government. This should have important consequences for voter behaviour and, in a recent study, we shed light on this issue.

Using data collected for two years with repeated nationally representative surveys, we found that Turkish people’s perceptions of economic change were influenced by real growth in their incomes. In other words, the alleged ‘reality disconnect’ is not valid. Nonetheless, we also found that exposure to relatively pro-government media biased respondents’ perceptions of the economy upwards.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

When we asked people to guess the average increase in prices over the last year, the audience of the relatively more pro-government TV channels offered estimates which were 7-8 percentage points lower than those of others, regardless of their political views. Comparing two hypothetical individuals, both of whom voted for the incumbents in the last election, and whose incomes grew at the same rate from the same base over the last year, the one who watched the news on pro-government TV was more likely to have a more positive assessment of both their own pocketbook and the Turkish economy.

In addition, they would be likely to think that the economy would have been worse if the incumbent were to be replaced, even if they reported dissatisfaction with the current situation. In other words, when the economy tanks, people notice it, but if they are getting their news from particular TV channels they are less likely to imagine a political alternative.

Looking ahead to March 31st, Turkey will go to the polls in the worst economic conditions recorded since the global recession. Yet the government’s hold over the media is now more complete than ever. After we finished our research, a pro-government business group purchased the biggest media company associated with the secular opposition—and changed its editorial policy immediately. Moreover, fearful of losing voters to an alternative right-wing party, the AKP has made an electoral alliance with the ultra-nationalist MHP, which should help preserve the voter block intact. Turkey’s incumbents are likely to lose votes—but, rather than heralding change, this may remain for them a transitional challenge of manageable proportions.

Alper Yağcı and Cem Oyvat

Alper Yağcı is an assistant professor of International Relations at Ozyegin University, Istanbul. Cem Oyvat is a senior lecturer at the University of Greenwich in the Department of International Business and Economics.

You are here: Home / Politics / In Turkey economic recession hardly makes the news

Most Popular Posts

Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic

Most Recent Posts

Pakistan,flooding,floods Flooded Pakistan, symbol of climate injusticeZareen Zahid Qureshi
reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube