RAPID: A Panel Study of Presidentialism and, Democratic Collapse and the Rise of a One-Party State: Turkey at the Crossroads

本研究评估的核心问题是政党和政党成员在两次战略选举后将议会制政体改为总统制政体的过程中所扮演的角色。PI提议在议会选举后重新调查议会候选人，因为在议会选举中，多数党无法达成组建政府的联盟。新的选举创造了一个独特的机会，可以评估和重新评估影响个别党员支持或反对从议会制向总统制转变的激励措施。现有的理论假设，精英对总统制的偏好源于执政党精英的政治不安全感，以及所有政治精英的意识形态和政策激进化。PI考察了政党的特征如何影响政党精英在做出决定时如何考虑他们所在政党、选民和特殊利益集团的偏好。以土耳其作为感兴趣的案例，PI重新面试了300名MP候选人，以创建一个新的面板数据集。在这个项目中，PI收集精英级别的调查数据，使她能够测试有关宪法和政权更迭的战略决策的现有和新理论。关于政治体制和民主崩溃的现有文献研究表明，执政党精英在掌握政治权力方面的不安全感、精英中的思想和政策激进化以及贫困和族裔两极分化等结构性因素是影响精英选择总统而不是议会制并支持向非民主政权过渡的关键决定因素。然而，最近通过立法修改宪法以促进向总统制和非民主制度过渡的经验趋势表明，现有的解释没有从理论上解释政党在这些现象中的作用。PI汇编了一个新的精英小组数据集，通过对土耳其议会候选人的重新调查，收集了原本无法获得的精英级别的数据。通过这个精英调查项目，PI试图了解多数党和在野党议员候选人在议会/总统过渡问题上的激励结构。这项研究涉及关于议会制与总统制、延长总统任期和悄悄蔓延的威权主义的文献。

General SummaryThis study assesses core questions about the role of political parties and political party members in the constitutional change of a parliamentary government system to a presidential governmental system in the aftermath of two strategic elections. The PI proposes to re-survey parliamentary candidates in the aftermath of parliamentary elections in which the majority party could not achieve a coalition to form a government. The new elections created a unique opportunity to assess and reassess the incentives that influence individual party members to support or oppose a transformation from a parliamentary system to a presidential system. Existing theories hypothesize that elite preference for presidential systems stems from the political insecurity of ruling party elites and, ideological and policy radicalization among all political elites. The PI examines how the characteristics of political parties influence how political-party elites account for the preferences of their party, their voters and special interest groups in reaching their decisions. Using Turkey as the case of interest, the PI re-interviews 300 MP candidates to create a novel panel dataset. Technical SummaryIn this project, the PI collects elite-level survey data that allow her to test existing and new theories about strategic decision making concerning constitutional and regime change. Extant research in the literatures on political institutions and democratic collapse identify the insecurity of ruling party elites regarding their grip on political powers, ideological and policy radicalization among elites and structural factors such as poverty and ethnic polarization as key determinants influencing elites to choose a presidential over parliamentary system and, to support a transition to a non-democratic regime. However, recent empirical trends towards legislating constitutional changes to facilitate transitions to presidentialism and to non-democratic regimes suggest that existing explanations under-theorize the role of political parties in these phenomena. Compiling a novel elite panel dataset, the PI collects otherwise unavailable elite-level data through a re-survey of parliamentary candidates in Turkey. Through this elite-survey project the PI seeks to understand the incentive structure for both majority-party and opposition-party MP candidates in the parliamentary/presidential transition question. This research addresses literature on parliamentarism versus presidentialism, extension of presidential term of office, and creeping authoritarianism.