Non-economic voting and incumbent strength in Turkey

Evidence suggests that incumbent parties find it harder to be re-elected in emerging than in advanced democracies because of more serious economic problems in the former. Yet the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) has ruled Turkey since 2002. Does economic performance sufficiently account for the electoral strength of the AKP government? Reliance on economic performance alone to gain public support makes a government vulnerable to economic fluctuations. This study includes time-series regressions for the period 1950-2011 in Turkey and demonstrates that even among Turkey's long-lasting governments, the AKP has particular electoral strength that cannot be adequately explained by economic performance.

Voting behavior in Indonesia from 1999 to 2014 : religious cleavage or economic performance?

In this study, we examine the voting behavior in Indonesian parliamentary elections from 1999 to 2014. After summarizing the changes in Indonesian parties' share of the vote from a historical standpoint, we investigate the voting behavior with simple regression models to analyze the effect of regional characteristics on Islamic/secular parties' vote share, using aggregated panel data at the district level. Then, we also test the hypothesis of retrospective economic voting. The results show that districts which formerly stood strongly behind Islamic parties continued to select those parties, or gave preference to abstention over the parties in some elections. From the point of view of retrospective economic voting, we found that districts which experienced higher per capita economic growth gave more support to the ruling parties, although our results remain tentative because information on 2014 is not yet available.

State-business relations in the smaller gulf monarchies -- the role of business actors in the decision-making process

The Arab monarchies of the Gulf have been undergoing striking socio-economic changes caused by the ending of the rent-based welfare state model on which they had largely relied since the 1950s. In this perspective, this paper aims at examining the comparative role of local business communities in affecting the orientations and the outcomes of the policies implemented during the period of high oil prices in the 2000s. This paper pays a special attention to the impact of the Arab Spring on the state-business relations in two of the smaller Gulf monarchies (Bahrain and Oman).

The stakes of politics and electoral administration : a comparative study of Southeast Asian democracies

Elections play a crucial role in political stability in post-democratization, and electoral administrations are the key to the electoral process. However, not all newly democratized countries have established reliable electoral administration. New democracies in Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, have independent election commissions which have different characteristics, especially in terms of neutrality. Based on three cases, this paper claims that the stakes of politics are the major determinant of the variations in neutrality. The high stakes of politics in Thailand brought about the partisan election commission, while the low stakes in Indonesia made the electoral system relatively neutral. Like Thailand, the high stakes of politics in the Philippines also cause political intervention in the electoral administration.