Accession to the European Union (EU) has been one of the most crucial topics of the Turkish foreign policy. This topic, albeit sometimes not having a priority, always remained as a current issue and played a determinant role in Turkey's objective of Westernization. Within this process, parallel to the success that the accession would bring, it became more ascendant in current politics. It acted as the sword of Damocles as a determinant either for the election victories or as a trouble-maker on the head of the parties. The foundation of the Turkey-EU relations was first laid by the Democrat Party in July 31st, 1959 and these relations began to get deepen by the time the Motherland Party (ANAP) came into power in the 1980's. This study aims to determine the reasons that led Turkey to apply for the EU membership, the place of the relations with the Europen Economic Community (EEC) on Turkish foreign policy and the repercussions of this application in the public opinion. Therefore it is going to be given a general overview on the early years of those relations. In the citations taken from the newspapers of the period the expression common market is used for defining Turkey's counterpart while the author himself rather prefers to use the EEC, the predecessor of the EU.
Demokrasinin vazgeçilmez unsuru olan seçimler, seçmenlerin ülkenin yönetilmesinde söz sahibi olmasını istedikleri kişi ya da siyasi partiye yetki vermesi anlamına gelmektedir. Ancak seçmenlerin oy verme davranışını yönlendiren birbirinden farklı nedenler bulunabilmektedir. Sosyo-ekonomik, psikolojik birçok unsurun etkisiyle hareket eden bu seçmenlerin eğilimleri ülkelere, toplumlara hatta aynı bölge ve şehirlere göre farklılık göstermektedir. Türkiye'de seçmen tercihleri ile seçmen tercihlerini etkileyen sosyo-kültürel, ekonomik vb. etkenler hususunda çok sayıda ve geniş kapsamlı birçok araştırma yapılmıştır. Ancak seçmenlerin seçim zamanlarında gerçekleştirilen siyasal seçim kampanyalarında ortaya konulan vaatleri ne kadar dikkate aldığı ya da vaatlerin kaynağı hususunda ne kadar bilgili oldukları hakkında çok fazla bilgi bulunmamaktadır. Dolayısıyla Türkiye'de seçim kampanyalarında kullanılan seçim vaatlerinin seçmenler tarafından hangi siyasi partiye ait olduğunun bilinirliği bir problem olarak ortada durmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı da bu çerçevede Türkiye'de seçim kampanyalarında kullanılan seçim vaatlerinin seçmenler tarafından bilinirliği ve kampanyalarda kullanılan seçim vaatlerinin hangi siyasi partiye ait olduğunun bilinirliğinin tespitini sağlamaktır. ; As an indispensable constituent of democracy, elections can be defined as the authorization of the individuals or political parties that voters favor most to rule the state. Nonetheless it is likely that a wide range of motives direct polling behavior of voters. Driven from a multitude of factors such as socio-economic and psychological the voters, in their polling behavior, may differ with respect to countries, social communities, regions, provinces and expectations. As an outcome of the differentiation of expectations, it became inevitable that parties with different inclinations would introduce polyphony into political life. A good number of comprehensive studies have been conducted on voter preferences in Turkey as well as socio-cultural, economic and similar factors playing role in voter preferences. Nevertheless it has been detected that there are limited number of researches focusing on to what extent voters pay heeds to the promises outspoken during political campaigns or their knowledge on the party origins of such promises. Hence it appears that the awareness of voters regarding the origin of election promises used by each party in Turkey during political campaigns stands as a problem. Within that scope the purpose of current study is to detect whether the promises given during political campaigns in Turkey are paid attention by voters and the level of awareness on the political party origins of these promises. Current research unveiling the general attitudes and inclinations of Konya voters shall meanwhile offer a general evaluation whether voters take declarations of election into consideration and how attentively they follow the party they vote for. Data essential for this research have been collected from a questionnaire which is listed amongst the resources of secondary data. In this questionnaire, there are close-ended questions in addition to Likert scale questions. Field study has been conducted through face-to-face survey method. Field study has covered collectively 1907 subjects from total 22 districts in Konya; 3 central districts and 19 sub districts. Population includes all the voters in Turkey who bear the ability of electing and being elected. After tabulating basic information and inclination of voters in districts, by taking certain criteria into account such as age, profession and income level, the evaluation shall be based on detecting certain issues voters need urgent solutions and also partial analyses shall be aimed to detect how attentively some populations follow campaign promises while voting for their parties and how attentively they analyze declarations of elections. In this questionnaire, aside from questions directed to gather information on the general evaluation of voters, there are some questions as stated below in order to uncover how attentively relevant populations follow campaign promises of the parties. "All living places shall be disabled-friendly", "A high-quality life standard shall be provided to senior citizens", "A new Constitution underscoring personal freedom and judicial independence", "Per capita income shall rise to 25 thousand dollars", "Low-income families shall be granted houses with no advance payments", "Poor newly-wed farmers shall be aided with zerointerest loan", "The dormitories in KYK (Credit and Dormitories Agency) shall reach to 600-thousand capacity", "All citizens shall be covered with health insurance", "Fight against terrorism and state aid for the victims of terrorism", "Personnel cadre ambiguity shall be stopped", "Small size farmers shall receive support", "Chauffeurs shall pay no VAT (Value added tax), SCT(Special consumption tax)", "SMEs shall pay no VAT", "Poor families shall be assisted with Hilalkart", "Wages for the disabled shall be boosted to 450 TL", "Net minimum wage shall be increased to 825 TL", "The aids for the poor shall be increased", "Poor and middle income citizens shall be provided with full mortgage", "Poor Women shall be granted assistance", "Adaptation Law shall pass and better conditions shall be provided to the retired", "University fees shall be nullified", "Istanbul shall be proclaimed as the new prestige finance center". Accordingly the answers of the voter populations to determine the origin -AKP, CHP or MHP- of the most leading promises in declarations of election and fields have been sought. Declaration of election -which is a partnership treaty signed between political parties to be elected and the voters whose polls they need- has been annexed to the relevant questionnaire because of being an issue ignored in our country. In the analysis part of research, a couple of tables that reflect the thoughts of voters regarding the political party origins of the promises that we deem to have been in relation to certain populations are illustrated. Research sampling consists of subjects bearing the ability to elect and be elected selected via simple random sampling method from voters in Konya. The questionnaire which constitutes in the introduction part general questions such as the age, gender, educational background, marital status, profession and monthly income level of participants has been divided into various groups of questions. Thus it has been aimed to detect the issues voters demand urgent solution and also how attentively voters follow election campaigns and whether they are aware of the political party origins of campaign promises. In the end it has been feasible to reach a conclusion regarding the voter population in Konya, political parties that are popular on the basis of districts. Elections are acknowledged as an indication of democratization for countries since it is verified that national will shall eventually rise as the winner from ballot box. However it is indeed hard to detect how many of the voters demonstrate a conscious attitude. Some voters bear an ideological attitude and partisan identity whereas some voters vote for the party whom they believe to be most beneficial for their own sake. The causes that lead a person to different inclinations are not only psychological but can be attributed to a wide range of variables like economic factors, family, educational level, income level, profession, religious tenets (even ethic origins during the latest ages). As regards the outcome with respect to Turkey it seems challenging to arrive at a certain conclusion for the voter population since other than entrenched votes there are also amphibian votes for the parties and no equal stability can be ensured for each party. Therefore it can be argued that the majority of Turkish voters act pragmatically rather than ideologically. In this questionnaire that constitutes the scope of current research data gathered from 22 districts of the sampling city Konya are supportive of this finding. To illustrate, the collected responses manifest that voters select with no awareness of the programs of parties and actually pay no heeds to such issues. Furthermore on the basis of such data it can reasonably be argued that the majority of voters in Konya province unite around the very same parties.
