Talk:
“Electoral Integrity in Turkey”
by
Dr. Emre Toros
Professor of Political Science &
Dean at the Faculty of Communication
Hacettepe University
Ankara, Turkey
emretoros@hacettepe.edu.tr
Date and Room Info:
Monday, October 30, 2023, 12:30 p.m.; A-130
Abstract:
This talk will be on a forthcoming book entitled “Electoral Integrity in Turkey” by the author. “Electoral Integrity in Turkey” is among the early studies that focus on one of the most significant obstacles to democratic governance of current times by utilising the towering literature on the subject and formulating a fresh and comprehensive approach to understanding the phenomena, accompanied by a case study on Turkey. Although highly illuminating, existing studies fail to explain the particularities of numerous singular electoral settings, especially for the grey-zone regimes, which are neither clearly democratic nor conventionally authoritarian. To address this gap, this study develops a theoretical approach that identifies the causes and consequences of electoral integrity nested at individual and institutional levels. This novel approach contributes to the literature by utilising the valuable research strategies of the existing studies, proposing alternative data sources that will better understand the phenomena and, most importantly, proposing a new theoretical framework that will suit both singular and comparative cases. Among others, the most exciting finding of this new framework is that although problems with electoral integrity harm democratic functioning in most cases, for the Turkish case, it also contributed to the maturation of democratic processes.
Bio:
Emre Toros is a professor of Political Science and dean at the Faculty of Communication, Hacettepe University Ankara, Turkey. He is a student of political behaviour, and his primary interests are social research design, including data collection, processing, analysis and reporting.
He has carried out his academic studies both in Turkey and abroad, including King’s College London, Stanford and Harvard Universities, and his work appeared in journals including Democratisation, International Journal of Forecasting, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Turkish Studies, and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.