Changing Horses in Midstream: Party Changers in the Turkish National Assembly

Abstract

Party changing in the Turkish legislature-a frequent occurrence until the breakdown of competitive politics in 1980 and discouraged under the new constitutionhas both promoted and undermined the stability of the Turkish political system, depending on the conditions under which it has occurred. For the deputy, party changing has constituted an option through which his political career may be advanced. This study finds that party changing mildly enhances the legislative tenure of a deputy; moreover, party changers and loyalists differ in their career mobility and their districts differ in certain characteristics, such as size and level of socioeconomic development. Party changing appears to enhance the reelection chances of deputies more if conducted in a term following a critical election. Because context appears to be an important determinant of party changing, case studies may improve our understanding of the phenomenon. The relative abundance of studies on party cohesion in the legislatures of Western democracies suggests that there are many occasions when the legislators in these systems may deviate from the preferences of the leadership of their parties. By a similar line of reasoning, the paucity of studies on legislators who leave their parties to join others or to become independents indicates that this pattern of behavior may be unusual. Rare as it may be in other systems, changing party affiliation is not unique to Turkish parliamentarians (cf. Buck, 1963, pp. 23-25). The Turkish case should warrant attention, however, for two reasons. First, its frequency and magnitude are unusual. Since the introduction of competitive politics in Turkey in 1946, 2,795 persons have served as deputies in the Turkish (Grand) National Assembly.1 Of these, 445 incumbents, or approximately one-sixth of the total, have left the parties on whose ticket they had originally been elected. Some have moved to another party, others have joined a party after having been elected as independents, and still others have become independents after having been elected on a party ticket, often to join a different party at a later date. Second, party changing in the Turkish parliament has been treated as a problem by the makers of the most recent (1982) Turkish constitution. In describing the conditions under which membership in the legislature may be terminated, among other things, Article 84 says: