The seminar's point of departure is the broad discussion that regional development is closely related with the regions’ distance to ruling political parties. Discussions on distributive politics asserts that governments favor regions where their vote share is relatively higher. Likewise, ruling political parties do not only favor regions where they lead ahead of their competitors, but they are also supportive to locations where ideological position is closer to their own fundamentals. Therefore, for societies like Turkey where ideological stance is mixed and the level of fragmentation is high, regional political climate can have an influence beyond the direct effect of certain political parties.Dr Karahasan's findings indicate that, regions that are ideologically closer to right-wing political views and locate firmly together with the ideology of the incumbent party realize a better well-being in Turkey. On contrary rising left-wing ideologies, accelerating polarization and fractionalization decrease the welfare and well-being of Turkish regions. Additionally, individuals’ perception on certain public services is highly influenced from the distance to certain political ideologies. These results suggest that distributive politics matters for Turkey. However, impact of electoral and distributive politics is beyond the boundaries of political parties.
Burhan Can Karahasan is an Associate Professor in Economics at the Piri Reis University, Turkey. Formerly he was a Research Fellow for the University of Barcelona (2009-2010) and a Visiting Fellow for LSE-European Institute, Research on South Eastern Europe (LSEE, 2014-2015). His main area of research is labor and regional economics. Dr. Karahasan received the PhD Award of Turkish Economic Association in 2010 and the Ibn Khaldun Research Prize of Middle East and Economic Association in 2013. His research contributes to projects supported by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Economic Research Forum and UK Research and Innovation. Karahasan publishes on peer review journals such as Journal of Conflict Resolution, Defense and Peace Economics, International Regional Science Review, International Review of Economics and Finance, Social Science and Medicine, Region, Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies. He is the co-editor of two books on Turkish economy and has book chapters on regional and development economics.
Orkun Saka is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Finance at the University of Sussex, a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Research Associate at the Systemic Risk Centre. He holds a PhD from Cass Business School (City, University of London) and an MSc from LSE. Prior to joining Sussex, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at LSE. He is passionate about research on financial crises and political economy of financial intermediation.
Vassilis Monastiriotis is Associate Professor in the Political Economy of South Eastern Europe at the LSE, and Director of LSEE. His research focuses on economic policy and performance at the regional, national and supra-national levels, with emphasis on trade, FDI and the labour market.
The twitter Hashtag for this event is: #LSETurkey
LSEE (@LSEE_LSE ) was officially launched at the start of the 2009-10 academic year as a research unit established within LSE's European Institute. Over the last several years LSEE has developed the School's expertise on South East Europe, drawing on the strength of existing and new academic expertise at the LSE.