Electoral realignments in the June 7th – November 1st elections: The Tokat city example

In the elections held on the dates November 1st, 2015 and June 7th, 2015 a very big electoral realignment was observed in record time. During this short interval of five months, the society was faced with intense political propaganda and social problems. In this study, a research was conducted for determining how much influence political propaganda and social events in association with political propaganda have on vote transition between parties. Within the scope of the study; Collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential methods. In addition, as a result of dunn tests made with Friedman chi-square and Post hoc comparisons, the correlation between the questions regarding transition from one party to another was examined and very obvious agglomerations were detected in some realignments.


Introduction
There are numerous factors affecting decisions of voters, and many scientists from different disciplines are conducting studies to analyse these factors. In particular, these studies have acquired a new dimension with developments in communication technologies, and electoral campaigns started to affect voter behaviour directly. Electoral campaigns started to be organised with regard to media when state monopoly was abolished in Turkey, particularly in publishing sector, in the 90s, and thus media started to affect behaviours of voters directly. Media and electoral campaigns are not the only factors affecting voter behaviour; moreover, socio-cultural factors always underlie voter behaviours. For this reason, electoral campaigns used socio-cultural-economic factors, which includes social codes, as a tool. As a result, media started to design electoral environment, and voters became unable to differentiate electoral campaigns and they started to see propagandas as a part of daily life. An early election was held five months after the general elections on June 7th 2015, and a very big electoral realignment was observed between the parties. A period of uncertainty and chaos dominated this five-month-period since the government was not able to be formed. This provided the basis for political propagandas. The concept of "single power for stability" was used very often in political propagandas. On the other hand, terrorist attacks which started in this period directly affected socio-cultural structure of the society. This study questions the relationship between political communication and socio-cultural factors in electoral realignments in such a short time. The city of Tokat was selected as sample within the framework of this study. The reason for this is that the city of Tokat has a cosmopolite structure (people from various sects and ethnic backgrounds make up the 35% of the population), and it has an economic structure which is equivalent to many other medium-scaled cities. Therefore, Tokat is a role model among other cities. Furthermore, the number of deputies of the parties changed as a result of electoral realignment, and the city was among the cities that affected votes directly.
A new inferential research technique was used in this study in order to analyse the topic in a multidimensional way. As a result of Dunn tests made with Friedman chi-square and Post hoc comparisons, the correlation between the questions regarding transition from one party to another was examined and obvious agglomerations were detected in some realignments. In this way, a new perspective was offered for analysis of the factors in electoral realignments. As a result, the relationship between socio-cultural factors and electoral campaigns was analysed.

Voter behaviour
There are many factors influencing voter behaviour. What determines the perspective of these factors, on the other hand, is media, economy, interest groups, ideology and pressure groups. The voter might change behaviour due to the socio-economic and political environment he is affiliated to. In this behavioural change, the media influences the behaviour of the voter sometimes as a propaganda tool and sometimes as a feedback collection tool (Erdoğan, 2004: 4-6). Thermal political conditions effect voter behaviour too. According to Güven, one of the basic characteristic notions of the postmodern term policy is flexibility; that political resolution process is based on flexibility and postmodern politicians and voters act in a flexibility field (Güven, 2016a: 297). The schools of Columbia and Michigan have put forth two approaches regarding the sociological and psychological dimensions of voter behaviour within the theoretical context. According to the Columbia school social divisions significantly influence voter behaviour and ethnic, religious and occupational differences underlie social division. In a world which is ever rationalizing, this idea has lost its significance in developed societies, while in underdeveloped or developing societies political discourses based on religious and ethnic origins increase day by day. By contrast with the approaches of the Columbia school, the Michigan school focuses on the approach of the voter as an individual. It argues that voters have a psychological bond with parties, based on the past, and it indicates that this bond influences the behaviour of the voter by creating profound effects (Erdoğan, 2004: 110-111). While according to Dahl; political participation is based on curiosity, interest, information and action. For this reason, in relation to the analysis of political behaviour, voters' orientation and to send messages to these orientations are quite important (Dahl, 1963: 56). Another important thing is political leaders discourses, that the voters want to hear something about their interests from them (Güven, 2015a: 236). There are many factors that influence voting. Many researchers working on this field look for answers to these questions: Is the voter able to make a meaningful choice at the ballot box? Are the more dominant factors during voting economical or ideological? Does the voter make a rational choice by "thinking pragmatically" as classical democracy theorists claim? Or does the voter vote under the influence of propaganda tools, having lost his rational thinking due to directions of politicians and media? The question important to communication researchers is, how influential are propaganda tools and has the voter himself turned into a propaganda tool? (Gökçe, Akgün and Karaçor, 2002: 6-7).
People away from collective ownership and is only human in postmodern term. This term human is formless, fluid, situational and flexible (Güven, 2015b: 266). So the partisanship phenomenon is dying away in our day. Rather than being a party to or a devotee of a political party, many people consider themselves impartial or indecisive. This accelerates and catalyses vote transition between parties. For this reason, many political campaigns serve the retaining of party grassroots and also the winning of indecisive voters. Especially with the 2002 elections, vote transitions have been observed seriously in our country. For example, the Democratic Left Party, whose vote was 22% in the previous elections, was able to receive only 1.2% in the following 2002 elections (Devran, 2003: 6). Similarly, the Justice and Development Party, which received 40.9% votes in the June 7th elections, increased its votes to 49.5% within a time as short as five months. What determines the governments is not anymore, the votes of decisive voters, but the votes of indecisive voters and non-voters. For this reason, political propaganda and political communication studies come to the fore every passing day.

Media, communication and politics
Political communication is reaching large masses by using written, verbal, visual and other communication tools and implementing strategies that influence political preferences of the public opinion by using the methods of advertisement, propaganda and public relations. Rather than persuading people, the main purpose in political communication is targeting large masses to attract their attention and providing the internalization of political messages by sharing them. Political leaders have to use efficient campaign and communication techniques in order to open the door to power. Our age is the age of information, propaganda, media and marketing. With political communication; agendas are created, public expectations are set, the way is paved for military coups during anti-democratic periods, increase of political participation is ensured, transmitting of social values is ensured, assimilation, integration or disintegration in society is created, in some situations impact is created for the will of the opposition to not be realized (Çobanoğlu, 2007: 45-47).
Communication technologies and mass communication devices effected 20th and 21th century political life and have a important role to voter choices (Güven, 2016b: 90). Mass media comes to the fore every passing day within political science and political practices. It is an important instrument especially in the transmission of information and the moulding of public opinion. What is important here is whether public opinion will acquire the information by freely choosing it like a consumer from among many choices or information will reach public opinion after being filtered through various criteria such as accuracy, usefulness and in formativeness (Aksoy, 1994: 9). With the Second World War, studies about political persuasion gradually acquired a professional dimension. The meteoric rise of Hitler and Mussolini revealed how rapidly ordinary people are directed with propaganda tools. This gave rise to the questioning of the media's skills to govern and direct the voter. Many studies were conducted within this context and many different results were acquired. For example, partisans'' opinions cannot be changed by the media, however the media can increase the existing preferences and commitment. On the other hand, experts on communication, who set off from the uses and satisfactions theory, have asserted that the spectator is influenced by the media, whether a lot or a little. Meaning that the spectators have used the media to meet their own needs (Devran, 2003: 1-3).
Media content regulates the power relations within society. In the ideological level, it contributes to the powerful within society and the sustainability of power through the instrument of media. It is obvious that opinions are based on power and that the force to create symbols is not a simple or impartial force. Beyond aiming the aims of the power, the news is interpreted from the point of view of the power's interests. Almost everywhere in the world, the media puts forth how it functions as the extensions of power and it brings the routines and values together in the reproduction of the dominant ideology and in the creation of the control system (cited by İrvan, 2002: 131-132). The basis of mass media, television, enables the decrease in voting rate, gradual weakening of political parties, negation of important social problems through political campaigns; it enables the governments' contribution to social illnesses by using rhetoric and symbolic methods instead of problem solving ones. It is not so easy to reveal the influences of television in political life. There is a tendency to obscure the influences of television, creating a social trauma there. The best place to see the influences of television is public opinion. Television may be defined as the imagery force of public opinion. Political communication practices made through television may influence the political perception of the spectators. Especially with agenda setting and steering practices, the media, forces everyone to accept some issues. Here, having regard to some spectators who may be more sensitive towards some news, the news are matched up with political purposes. The important question here is; do the problems and issues chosen by media fit into the "real world" or the world drawn up by political parties? If they are not suitable to the real world, then distortion of the democratic process comes into question. This causes the voters to be directed at misleading decision making processes by the media (Iyengar, 1992:85-102). With developing and changing communication technologies, television and mass media, which are used as basic propaganda tools, have also changed and developed. Now in political communication, instead of a one-way communication, a sort of space warfare where messages are used is taking place. We can say that now the most efficient communication tool in election campaigns is the Internet. Rather than its popularity or prevalence, the most important reason that the Internet is being used intensively in a short time is because it provides new possibilities to users in the political communication area. These possibilities, which can be defined as positive features are giving freedom, velocity, accessibility, collecting feedback and being able to integrate with other communication channels. Its negative features, on the other hand, are issue of trust due to changing easily, issues of credibility, technical malfunctions, problems about the target group not being able to reach the message, situations where the control can be lost (Aziz, 2007: 62-67).
Kalender (2005) has explained the most used and most efficient of message strategies for persuading voters, with three basic strategies. These strategies are; fear appeal, foot-in-the-door technique, and repetition. Fear appeal is used often in the process of political communication. Fear appeal, especially uncovers the voters' concerns for the future, thus causing a change in attitude. A person's most basic need is the feeling of safety. The voter may not be subject to only individual fear; fear meant for a section of the society also effects the voter. Therefore, fear is also related to social responsibility. Fear appeal is used as part of a dystopian fiction concerning the present moment or the future and aims to persuade the voters or take their consent (cited by Doğan and Göker, 2013: 7-8). Fear has many varieties and consequences. Societies or individuals under fear may behave differently. Especially the behaviours of indecisive voters cannot be determined accurately in such processes. Indecisive voters actually constitute a sort of spiral of silence within society. According to the German sociologist Neumann; the spiral of silence is a theory that explains why people who feel as a minority abstain from stating their opinions. Meaning that the people observe which opinions gain strength and wide currency within society and thus determine the dominant opinion within public opinion. The silent masses are overcome by the feeling of isolation, and avoid attitudes, beliefs and ideas which are not accepted by the majority. In the 1988 elections President Bush's election theme based on the concern of "being isolated by society" was quite successful. He had accused his rival Michael Dukakis of being a member of ACLU -an association supporting atheists, criminals and child porn, and also of being a liberal. In this case, thinking that conservatism is a rising value, the supporters of Dukakis could not criticise this attitude of Bush and preferred to stay silent. As a result, the spiral of silence theory focuses on the people's fear of becoming a minority and being isolated (Çobanoğlu, p.21-37).
With the decision to hold an early election after the June 7th, 2015 elections, political parties came up against both economic and time-related problems. In order to solve these two problems they began using mass media as a tool for propaganda. With this purpose public opinion polls, campaigns, canvassing door to door techniques, political discourse were used for propaganda. The words of Prime Minister Davutoğlu, "If the Justice and Development Party is overthrown from power, white Toros' will be circulating here," brought up the murders by unknown assailants in the 90's and set the agenda through media, addressing the sociological codes within society. On the other hand, the opposition persistently inviting Prime Minister Davutoğlu to discuss the issue on television, indicates that social problems are used as a tool of propaganda. Within this five-month election period, the seizure of various media institutions, the time allocated by the state television TRT to politicians, the inconsistent surveys that were broadcasted and the messages disseminated via social media show how intensively communication tools are used in the election period. This whole process has constituted the spirals of "silence" and "noise," no attributive within society.

Hypotheses
H1: Socio-cultural changes affect electoral realignment between parties.
Socio-cultural factors have always had an important effect on electoral realignments. Therefore, socio-cultural codes that are used both in daily life and in media campaigns have a vital role. Citizenship movements in America caused significant electoral realignments in the elections in the south (Shelley, Zerr and Proffer, 2007) and in the north (Speel, 2010) in the historical process. Socio-cultural factors are important instruments in estimating electoral realignments (Rawson, 1997). It is seen that social and ideological problems have important roles in electoral realignments when elections of the years of 1995 and 1999 in Turkey are compared (Sitembölükbaşı, 2005). A relationship was determined between economic performance that increases GDP per capita and government's being elected in the elections that was held 2014 in Solomon Islands. Accordingly, voters of Solomon Islands evaluate government according to economic performance and change it with opposing parties if necessary (Wood, 2015:156). It was determined that aids and economic promises to voters who were in a difficult situation affected their political choice in the election that was held in 2009 in Germany (Gschwend and Zittel, 2015:338-343). It was found that political choices of voters in India was affected more from the economic factors than the other factors (Vaishnouve and Swanson, 2015:279-295).
H2: Propaganda and political campaigns affects electoral realignments between parties.
In the 1990s, when electoral campaigns in Turkey Americanised, press' having more influence and having a voice in political process changed the form and the content of the campaigns. Private radio and television channels which started their broadcasting life without a legal ground broadcasted in favour of and against the parties disregarding the rules and taking sides for the first time in 1991, and they obviously affected public opinion (Bali, 2002:185-188). Moreover, conducted public opinion studies turned into an important instrument for political campaigns. While politicians and their campaign advisors benefited from the data acquired from public opinion polls to determine strategy to be followed during electoral campaign and to form the message to be delivered, press that highlighted striking aspects of these data strengthened its position in the campaigns (Köker and Kejanlıoğlu, 2004:41-72). Use of social media has also become important in political campaigns and propagandas with technological developments in the last years. In particular, twitter messages of political characters dominated the agenda and acquired the potential to affect voter behaviour.
H3: Socio-cultural factors are used as a communication tool of political campaigns.
Socio-cultural factors draw the attention when electoral campaigns are observed. These sociocultural factors directly affect not only votes but also levels of participation in elections. Therefore, socio-cultural factors are used as an instrument of propaganda.

Sample
In this study, the influences of political communication tools and political developments on the explanation of electoral realignments in the general elections on 5 June 2015 and 1 November 2015 were investigated. Within this framework, the survey questions prepared by the researcher were applied by four people throughout the city of Tokat. 692 people who stated that they changed their votes were interviewed at the application of the study; among these, 234 people indicated that they do not want to make political declarations in any way, 312 people refused to fill in the survey stating that they refrain from participating in a political survey, and 146 people agreed to fill in the survey. Both descriptive and inferential research methods were used for analysing the acquired data. Within this scope, standard deviation, median, Friedman chi square, Post hoc and Dunn analyses were made.

Instrument
A scientific scale to determine electoral realignments could not be found which is valid and reliable during literature review. For this reason, 20 questions were formed under the consultancy of two academicians who work in this field and two sector representatives who work in the area of political campaigns. Through pretesting and feedbacks of consultants the number of the questions were decreased to 13. Furthermore, questions that aim to reveal the demographic charecteristics of participants such as gender, marital status and mothly income were prepared. Following studies were the source of inspiration while these questions were being prepared: Çakır and Biçer (2015), Tunçer and Arıman (2016)  In the elections held on 7 June 2015, throughout the city of Tokat 357,619 votes turned out to be valid. Among these 184,424 of them were for the Justice and Development Party, entitling to 3 parliamentarians, 77,600 of them were for the Nationalist Movement Party, entitling to 1 parliamentarian, 74,258 of them were for the Republican People's Party, entitling to 1 parliamentarian. In the elections held on 1 November 2015 throughout the city of Tokat, 356,238 votes turned out to be valid. Among these 212,144 of them were for the Justice and Development Party, entitling to 4 parliamentarians, 79,085 of them were for the Republican People's Party, entitling to 1 parliamentarian, 52,971 of them were for the Nationalist Movement Party, not entitling to any parliamentarians.
When we examine Table 1, we see that the number of valid votes are almost the same, however there is a serious change in the parties' votes. We especially notice the vote transitions from the Felicity Party -Great Unity Party alliance, the Nationalist Movement Party and the People's Democracy Party. Below are the answers to the 13 questions prepared to determine the influence of political propaganda and social events used with political propaganda; Source: Authorsʼ calculations.
Table3 shows that the concept of "To me single party rule means stability in the country" which provides the basis of electoral campaigns had one of the highest points (4,219). In addition, campaigns that are at the level of party rather than personal characteristics of the deputy candidates were ran. Therefore, answer rates to the question of "The change in parliamentary candidates influenced my political preference" is low (1,589).

Inferential analyses
In this section, in order to see which questions are influential on vote transition between parties, comparison was made with average deviation, median and Friedman test. To determine the level between the differences acquired as a result of the comparison, Post hoc comparisons and dunn test were performed and differences were determined. Table 4. Answers of voters who changed from the great unity party to the justice and development party As a result of double Dunn test between the questions the ones where p<0.05 are questions 2, 3, 5 versus 9. Figure 1. Double test to explain the correlation between questions on changing from the great unity party to the justice and development party The correlation between the questions which influence the voting behaviour of the voter is as above. According to this diagram; in changing from the Great Unity Party to the Justice and Development Party, questions 2, 3, 5 and 9 have determining influence. There is a significant difference between questions 2, 3, 5 versus question 9. When the average and median values of these questions are taken into account, question 9 appears to be a more influential determinant in voting. Table 5: Answers of voters who changed from the republican people's party to the justice and development party As a result of the Dunn test performed to determine the correlation between questions P <0.001; Questions 1,2,4,6,7,8,9,10 and 13 versus question 11, have influenced the voting behaviour of the voter.
Questions 4,6,8,9 versus question 3, have influenced the voting behaviour. Figure 2. Double test to explain the correlation between questions on changing from the republican people's party to the justice and development party The correlation between the questions influencing the voting behaviour of the voter is shown in the figure above. According to this figure; the 11th question influences voter behaviour in changing from the Republican People's Party to the Justice and Development Party, while questions 13 and 8 also influence voter behaviour. Here, instead of a central tendency between the questions, there is a dispersion and expansion of perspective. Table 6. Answers of voters who changed from the people's democracy party to the justice and development party As a result of the Dunn test performed to determine the correlation between questions, the correlation between questions where P <0.001; Questions 4,6,8,9,13 versus question 12, have influenced the voting behaviour with a significant difference. Questions 4,6,8,9,13 versus question 2, have influenced the voting behaviour with a significant difference. Figure 3: Double test to explain the correlation between questions on changing from the people's democracy party to the justice and development party The correlation between the questions influencing the voting behaviour of the voter is shown in the figure above. According to this figure; significant agglomerations are observed in some questions. Questions 4,6,8,9,13 powerfully influence voter behaviour, while question 12 influences weakly. Table 7. Answers of voters who changed from the nationalist movement party to the justice and development party As a result of the dunn test performed to determine the correlation between questions, the correlation between questions where P <0.001; Questions 1,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,13 versus question 12, have influenced the voting behaviour with a significant difference. Questions 1,4,6,7,8,9,10,13 versus question 5, have influenced the voting behaviour with a significant difference.
Questions 4,6,7,8,10,13 versus questions 2 and 3, have influenced the voting behaviour with a significant difference. Questions 4,7,8,9,13 versus questions 1,6,10,11, yielded significant results. Figure 9: Double test to explain the correlation between questions on changing from the nationalist movement party to the justice and development party The correlation between the questions influencing the voting behaviour of the voter is shown in the figure above. According to this figure; there are correlations between many questions. When the average values and median values between questions are taken into consideration; it is seen that question 5 is generally less influential compared to other questions. Additionally, questions 2 and 3, which investigate communication tools that are defined as political propaganda tools, turn out to be less influential. Table 8. Answers of voters who changed from the nationalist movement party to the republican people's party As a result of the Dunn test performed to determine the correlation between questions, the correlation between questions where P <0.001; Questions 2,3,4,5,8,9,10 versus question 11, yielded significant results. Questions 2,3,4,5,9,10 versus questions 6, 7 and 12, yielded significant results.
Questions 4,9,10 versus questions 1 and 8, yielded significant results. Figure 5. Double test to explain the correlation between questions on changing from the nationalist movement party to the republican people's party The correlation between the questions influencing the voting behaviour of the voter is shown in the figure above. According to this figure; there are correlations between many questions. Particularly question 11 has been less influential compared to many other questions. However no correlations were determined between questions 6, 7 and 12, which have influence on the same questions, versus question 11. Table 9. Answers of voters who changed from the felicity party to the justice and development party As a result of the Dunn test performed to determine the correlation between questions, the correlation between questions where P <0.001; Questions 4,6,7,8,9,11,1213 versus question 5, yielded significant results.
Questions 4,6,9,12 versus question 2, yielded significant results. Questions 1,3,7,10,11 versus question 4, yielded significant results. Figure 6. Double test to explain the correlation between questions on changing from the felicity party to the justice and development party The correlation between the questions influencing the voting behaviour of the voter is shown in the figure above. According to this figure; significant agglomerations were determined between some questions. Here, a significant result was determined especially between question 4, regarding the behaviour of the opposition, versus other questions.

Conclusion
As McLuhan indicated; with globalization and developments in communication technologies, "the world is turning into a small village" and the tools used constitute our messages. In an environment such as this, communication tools used by political parties, which are constantly in communication with society, gradually improve and differentiate. These improvements and differentiations turn people into "tools" and "people who have turned into tools" into messages. For this reason, in election periods political parties carry out many different activities, under the name of political propaganda, in order to influence their target groups.
With the study, it was determined that the participants of the study are not aware that they are living under the message bombardment arising from political propaganda. The majority of the participants stated that they are not influenced by "election campaigns prepared by parties" or that "broadcasts on television do not influence their political preferences," nevertheless they stated that they are influenced by "campaign pledges," which constitute the basis of the parties' political propaganda. Hence, this shows that political propaganda tools are used effectively. This shows that the second hypothesis is correct. In addition, Election campaigns and propaganda are carried out in the political party level; there is no special propaganda for parliamentary candidates. For that reason, the voters and parliamentary candidates are far from each other, resulting in a weak influence on voter's behaviour. On the other hand, Within the scope of the study, 692 people were interviewed, and 146 people filled in the survey. This shows that people are not able to declare their political opinions comfortably, referring to the democracy structure of the country.
Socio-cultural and ideological factors are vital in electoral realignments. In the elections carried out since the year 1966, the voters' tendency was primarily to punish the party in power. However, within this election process, the behaviours of the opposition had a big influence on the electoral realignments of the voters. Approximately 97.25% of the participants indicated that they are influenced by the behaviours of the opposition. Besides, approximately 95.20% of the participants have stated that terror incidents influence their voting behaviour. During the elections, all parties had used terror incidents in their political discourse. This shows that the first hypothesis of this study, which is the effect of socio-cultural incidents on electoral realignments, is correct. Moreover, political campaigns focused on socio-cultural incidents in these elections. The concept of stability provided the basis for electoral campaigns. The voters were highly influenced by the most important political propaganda of the November 1 st elections, the discourse that single-party rule will bring stability. In this election process; as put forth by Kalender, one of the message strategies for persuading voters, the fear factor was used directly. Emergent fears regarding instability have led people to the phenomenon, "no matter what party it is, it should be single-party rule." Within this context, the people who have said that single-party rule is essential no matter what, are 69.86%. Besides, In vote transition between parties, theories of the Colombia and Michigan schools have been observed and it was determined that the psychological and ideological expectations of voters have influence on the behaviours of voters.
With Post hoc comparisons, some serious concentrations were determined in some questions among the ones that determine vote transitions between parties. This concentration was observed mostly in transitions between Republican People's Party-Justice and Development Party, Nationalist Movement Party-Justice and Development Party. In transitions from the Felicity Party to the Justice and Development Party, the behaviours of the opposition have been highly significant in determining the voter behaviour compared to other questions.
Unlike political propaganda prior to this, the political propaganda in this election process, implies a process that directly interferes in social life and turns the voter himself to a propaganda tool, beyond only conveying messages and directing the target group.