Turkey’s Map of Emotions and Its Political Reflections

Political psychology is an interdisciplinary scientific field that that combines politics and psychology to explore the effect of emotions in politics. It examines the backgrounds of political decisions at the individual and community levels. This study analyzes the political decisions of voters in Turkey, focusing on positive and negative reactions, such as trust and fear. Using conclusions drawn from the Addiction Map of Turkey Study (TURBAHAR), which involved interviews with approximately twenty-five thousand participants during five months in 2018, this study analyzed the results of local elections held in thirty metropolitan districts and fifty-one provinces in Turkey on March 31, 2019. Eighty-six percent of the electorate participated in the elections. The data are organized into three groups or zones that identified vote pool areas: the People’s Alliance (Zone 1), consisting of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP); the Nation Alliance (Zone 2), consisting of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the IYI Party; and the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) (Zone 3). This study tries to interpret the decision mechanisms and the positive and negative emotions of the voters in these three zones. The aim of the study is to analyze the recent psychopolitical reactions of Turkish voters in terms of anger, identity, inequality, uncertainty, polarization, discrimination, and tolerance of the society