Talk:
“On the Effects of the Earthquakes on Electoral Behavior in the May 2023 Turkish Parliamentary and Presidential Elections”
by
Dr.Mert Moral
Associate Professor
Political Science & International Relations
Sabancı University
mmoral@sabanciuniv.edu
Date and Room Info:
Thursday, December 26, 2024, 12:30 p.m.
A-130
Abstract:
Two devastating earthquakes on February 6, 2023, caused more than 50,783 deaths, 107,703 wounded, and about 3 million citizens to either permanently or temporarily leave the affected region, and drastically changed the composition and, possibly, the turnout and vote decisions of electorates in the region. While the timing and effectiveness of the rescue operations were heavily criticized, shortly after the earthquakes, President Erdoğan pledged to reconstruct the affected 11 provinces and has managed to not lose significant support in the May 2023 parliamentary and presidential elections. Merging official administrative data on damaged and unaffected buildings and election data with geocoded earthquake intensity, area displacement, and nightlights data and pre- and post-earthquake population and socioeconomic development at the neighborhood level, this study aims to present the first systematic investigation of the effects of the earthquakes on turnout and voting behavior in the twin elections in May 2023. We inform our theoretical expectations by the literature on the relationship between natural disasters and electoral behavior. Our comprehensive and novel dataset allows us to leverage geographical proximity to the epicenter, intensity, and pre-earthquake population and economic development to study the causal effects of the disasters on eligible voter and voter counts and electoral support for the incumbent party and candidate in the May 2023 elections.
Short Biography
Mert Moral is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the State University of New York at Binghamton and joined the faculty at Sabancı University, Istanbul-Turkey, in 2017. His research interests are voting behavior, political participation, democratic representation, political polarization, political and survey methodology, and comparative and Turkish politics. His research has been published at, among others, the American Journal of Political Science, Political Analysis, Political Behavior, Electoral Studies, Party Politics, and Political Research Quarterly. Dr. Moral has received several grants, fellowships, and honors, including the Turkish Researcher Association’s Academic Owl Award (2024), Sakip Sabanci International Research Award (2022), and Outstanding Young Scientist awards of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA-GEBİP, 2020) and Science Academy, Turkey (BAGEP, 2018), and is co-principal investigator of various survey studies including the Turkish Election Studies (2018, 2023) and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Survey Study (2019).