Publications and Data

"Modernization, Islam or Social Capital: What Explains Attitudes toward Democracy in the Muslim World?" (Forthcoming, Comparative Political Studies) 

This paper explains the determinants of individual support for democracy in ten Muslim-majority countries. Starting with economic and cultural interpretations of modernization theory, I advance an argument exploring cross-linkages between macro and micro level implications of this theory as they relate to attitudes toward democracy. I also provide a test of two alternative explanations, social capital and Islamic values. A series of cross-national and OLS regressions utilizing the fourth wave of the World Values Survey demonstrate that, fifty years later, modernization theory is still a powerful tool for explaining democratic attitudes. While political trust is found to be a strong determinant of support for democracy in Muslim countries, no support is found for the argument that Islam and democracy are incompatible.

Paper PDF

"Committee Assignments in a Nascent Party System: the case of the Turkish Grand National Assembly", with Walter Forrest and Yusuf Tekin (International political Science Review, 19(3), 2008)
In the US, scholars have developed theories to explain the role of legislative committees, but these theories have not been widely tested outside the US. This ambivalence results from the perception that the strength of political parties in parliamentary systems undermines the importance of other legislative institutions, including the committees. We surveyed members of the Turkish parliament during a period of considerable party system turmoil to test the applicability of the prominent theories of committee organization, the distributive, informational and partisan theories, to a parliamentary system. We found strong support for the distributive and partial support for the informational specialization and partisan theories. We consider the implications of these results for our understanding of the role of committees in parliamentary democracies and the study of parliamentary politics.
Paper (pdf)  Data (Coming soon)


"Treaties, Collective Responses and the Determinants of Aggregate Support for European Integration" (European Union Politics, 6(4) 2005)
 Paper (pdf)

The scholarly research investigating the individual level determinants of support for European integration is abundant, but analysis of aggregate level indicators is rare. This study investigates the collective responses of the Europeans to different integration periods by using a Multiple Interrupted Time Series design with panel data. The results of the analysis suggest that although public support as a macro variable is stable over time, there is some fluctuation during different integration periods. More importantly, the analysis provides evidence challenging some findings of the past studies as regards the impact of the aggregate level indicators of support for integration.



Under Review

“Information and Cues: Explaining Public Support for the European Parliament”, with Dale Smith (Revise and Resubmit status )

Over the last two decades a large literature has developed examining the determinants of public support for the European Union.  While these studies have focused on developing explanations of support for the EU, only a few studies have looked below this general level of support and examined attitudes regarding specific EU institutions.  In the current study, we analyze the determinants of individual-level support for the European Parliament.  Utilizing research in American public opinion, we argue that individuals rely on cognitive cues, especially when the object of support (i.e. EP) is complex or of low salience.  We also hypothesize that information has a moderating effect, with more informed individuals using these cues more effectively.  The results of ordered logit confirm both the use of supranational cues and the moderating effect of information.

Paper (contact me for a copy)

"The Popular Base of Muslim Democracy: Explaining Individual Support for Islamist Parties in Turkey and Morocco"

 The rise of Muslim democracy in various parts of the Muslim world has rejuvenated the debate about Islam and Democracy. It is now argued that Islamic parties are able to thrive and come to power without altering the rules of democracy. While much has been said about the implications of this phenomenon as it relates to moderation of Islamist parties and their contribution to democratization in the Islamic world, little has been done on the determinants of popular support for these parties. In this paper, I examine individual support for Islamist parties to fill this gap. My cases are Turkey and Morocco, two countries that witnessed the rise of moderate and pro-democracy Islamist parties within the last decade.  In the case of former, The Justice and Development party came to power for a second term with a comfortable majority and did not attempt to take over the democratic regime. I use the World Values survey to investigate the individual level determinants of support for Islamist parties by looking at such factors as religiosity, economic perceptions, civic values, and demographic characteristics. Multinomial and logit analyses are conducted for empirical testing. 

Ongoing Research

Voter Preferences and Support for Islamist Parties

"Who Votes? Explaining voting behavior in Turkey, Morocco and Egypt."

In recent years, increasing scholarly attention has been focused upon political participation in the authoritarian and hybrid regimes of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While the study of elections gained importance with the liberal reforms taking place in 1980s and 1990s in the region, many scholars remained skeptical about the meaning and use of elections in these political systems. Some scholars emphasized the legitimizing function of elections in non-democracies, while another group argued that elections are used instrumentally within the logic of clientele politics in the Middle East. A much different view argues that increasing participation in elections, particularly by the Islamists, poses a threat for democracy, because Islamists use elections as an instrument to get rid of democracy and take over the regime. Whatever the role of elections in the authoritarian and hybrid regimes of MENA is, citizens of these countries seem to be turning out at the polls in varying numbers. A more fundamental question that needs to answered before assessing the role of elections in this region, then, is: “who votes and why do individuals participate in elections in MENA?” This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining the microlevel voting behavior in Morocco, Turkey, and Egypt. In these three countries, elections and party competition is somehow established, but a significant amount of variation is observed regarding their regime characteristics and level of democratization. I use the fourth wave of the World Values Survey to investigate the voting behavior in these countries. The dependent variable is the vote intention as reported by the respondents. The survey also includes such items as religiosity, political Islamism, perceptions of politics as well as the basic demographics which allow me answer the above questions. I run a series of logit estimations to explain who votes and why individuals choose do so in the MENA region. The study has important implications for the role of elections and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa.

"The Determinants of Anti-Immigrant Attitudes in Europe: The Impact of Existing Immigrant Populations and National Political Parties", with Dale Smith.

Attitudes towards immigrants are determined by both interests (immigrants are taking my job) and values (immigrants are taking my country). While these individual attributes (e.g., education, occupation, and national attachment) are a useful first step in predicting citizens’ anti-immigrant attitudes, it is also important to control for the national context. Domestic factors will alter how individual characteristics are translated into attitudes, and in the current analysis, we focus on two groups of contextual factors. The first is the immigrant population while the second focuses on the policy position of the political parties within a country. Using data from the Eurobarometer (fall 2003) to measure individual attributes and attitudes, Eurostat for immigrant populations and Benoit and Laver’s (2006) data set on party positions, we find, holding all individual-level variables constant, citizens residing in countries with larger immigrant populations and a national political discourse that is more negative with respect to immigration will express stronger anti-immigrant attitudes.

Paper (contact me for a copy)