Incumbent and Oppositional Differences in Attitudes towards Democracy: The Turkish Case.

Turkish politics presents an interesting case for the discussion of attitudes towards democracy. Ironically, the pro-Islamist incumbent party has been increasingly identified with pro-democratic attitudes, while the age-old social democratic main opposition party has been accused of totalitarian tendencies. Whether these are part of campaign strategies or actual transformations of the attitudes towards democracy has been underexplored. This study explores these attitudes through a content analysis of two newspapers which voice the messages of the incumbent and opposition parties and the statements of core party members. It is expected to find significant differences between two parties in their attitudes as well as contradictions between the statements and media messages. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]