A Critical View on the Idea of Rising of Conservatism in University Graduates in Turkey

Abstract

Even though it is getting weaker, there is still a common idea in Turkish politics that well-educated people support the left-wing political parties and contrary, under-educated people support the right-wing/conservative parties. Although this idea may partially -or at the end- be true the situation is more complicated than this. In the Atlas of Turkish Values, for example, the comparison of 1990 and 2011 data indicates that conservatism has risen dramatically among university graduates. Therefore, it is necessary to know the background of this process together with the populist and ideological policies. Hence, we should examine some paradoxes of liberal democracy. So, the main research questions here are: 1. How are higher education and politics intertwined between 1990 and today? 2. What are the social and political effects of changing and specifically; on the voting behavior of the university graduates among these two main political lines: National Vision tradition and Republican political parties?