Persistence in regional voting patterns in Turkey during a period of major political realignment
Journal: European Urban and Regional Studies
Year: 2011

Using province-level data from five nationwide elections held during the past decade, we examine the main voting patterns in Turkey. By means of cluster analysis, we classify the 81 provinces according to vote shares of the major parties and independent candidates, and repeat this exercise for each election held between 1999 and 2009. We find that three-way and five-way partitions of the country adequately capture the main political cleavages in Turkey. Although the conservative right-wing parti