Abstract
SUMMARY235 SUMMARY This research aimed to examine the relationships between the socio-ecomomic modernization and the voting behaviour. Four general elections of the last 20 years (1973, 1977, 1983, 1987) were determined as the research duration. The field of resarch is the Region of South-Eastern Anatolian Project (GAP), which is the biggest integral regional development project ever realized in Turkey. There are two important reasons for choosing this region. Firstly, the region differs in many respects from the country in general for the voter behaviour. it has been considered that a research on this topic would provided us with interesting findings. Secondly, this research can create an opportunity for the future researchers to evaluate how the voter behaviour would change with implementation of GAP which is expected to bring about very important changes in tecnical, economic, social and cultural fields. The fundemantal hypothesis of the research is that there is a clear correlation -whatever its side be- between the socio-economic modernization and voter behaviour. Related to this hypothesis, the role of external factors on voter behaviour, turn-out, independent votes and the mobilizing political behaviours were examined. The theoretical approach in this research stressed the voter behaviour and its examination, while topics such as political participation, political culture, mobilized voter behaviour were particularly considered in order to determine the voter behaviour in236 the region. Next to the first chapter, the analysis realized at three different levels was presented in the following three chapters. In the second chapter voter behaviour in GAP Region -which is composed of Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, Mardin, Siirt, Şanlıurfa- was analized at the province-level and in the context of general elections held since 1960. The third chapter presents the analysis at the county-level, which is the backbone of the research. This chapter includes the presentations of correlations between the socio-ecomomic variables of 58 counties in the region and the `independent vote`, `turn-out` and `politically stable counties`. Firstly, correlation analysis was realized by using computers and then 10 counties which show peculiarities in terms of dependent political variables were chosen and examined. In the fourth chapter village-level was taken as the basis. Regarding the mobilized voter behaviour, the villages all the voters of which vote for the same political party or the independent candidate were determined among from 4000 villages in the region. Typical 158 ones of those villages were determined and examined. The data which is supposed to influence voter behaviour was determined and subjected to calculations. It was suggested that these villages which have figures of development below the national avarage but above the reginal avarege show mobilized voter behaviour due to certain factors originating from traditional structure and particularistic cultural attribitions of them as well as socio-economic sturucture. The aim of this research was to examine not the `why` but the `how` of voter behaviour. The research provided findings supporting our237 general hypothesis. However the analysis of voter behaviour as a human conduct requires multi-sided researchs. While our findings can said to be `valid`, they, of course, are far from being `sufficient`.
