Ideology or economic pragmatism?: Profiling Turkish voters in 2007

The general election of July 2007 took place in an atmosphere of polarization around debates concerning the changing nature of the Turkish political regime. The election victory for the incumbent Justice and Development Party seemed to depend on two competing sources of influence upo voters in their choice for political parties. One was primarily long-term ideological orientations built on left-right, religiosity and conservatism. The other was relatively short term evaluations of the government performance especially on the economic front. The article evaluates these two branches of influence upo voters’ choice with survey data collected before and after the July election