A loyal base? Authoritarian system support in times of crisis: The case of Turkey

This project explores forms of support authoritarian political systems enjoy. As part of this study, we will field several original online experiments in Turkey, recruiting Turkish participants from Facebook using online advertisement. Introduction: While an influential scholarship recognizes that nondemocratic regimes depend on popular support to lower the costs of staying in power, relatively little is known about the different forms of support authoritarian political systems enjoy. For example, can autocracies – like democracies – enjoy support that relies on the congruence between the values of citizens and those of the political system, not just on evaluations of policy performance? And, in authoritarian regimes, is support for the political community and regime principles resilient to fluctuations in policy performance, just like it is shown to be in democracies (Norris 2011:57-81)? Answers to these questions have implications for our understanding of authoritarian stability and democratic transitions. For authoritarian stability, they imply that regimes able to build support that does not exclusively rely on assessments of performance, may be less impacted by short-term fluctuations in policy performance, such as economic declines. For democratic transitions, they imply that a change in power may not be enough to challenge people’s congruence with views and principles of the old regime. In this work, we propose to test expectations regarding the various types of support authoritarian political systems may enjoy using empirical evidence from contemporary Turkey. Turkey, an electoral autocracy, has in the last decade gained the characteristics of a personalist authoritarian regime (Caliskan 2018, Esen & Gumuscu 2016, Yilmaz & Bashirov 2018). As part of this study, we will field several original online experiments, recruiting Turkish participants from Facebook using online advertisement. Theoretical background: Based on the work of Easton (1965), we begin by distinguishing between three different objects of the political system: the community, the regime, and the authorities. According to existing research, these objects can be hierarchically ranked from more to less conceptually abstract. Continuing to build on the work of Easton (1965), and for each separate object, we also distinguish between normative and instrumental forms of support. Normative forms of support are based on congruence and agreement between the values of citizens and of the political system, while instrumental forms of support are based on performance evaluations and judgments. In line with standard practice, we will use different survey items to tap into each support type, falling into each of the 6 cells. Building on this discussion, we formulate our main research questions and follow-up hypotheses.