Consequences of Popular Perceptions of Electoral Integrity: A Comparative Evaluation
Previous research shows that perceived fairness of elections is linked to turnout and availability of meaningful partisan choices. We focus here on the consequences of these perceptions upon satisfaction with democracy, ideological polarization, political efficacy and evaluations of the performance of the economy. As such, the objective is to link the perceived fairness of elections to systemic level performance indicators of democracy. Cross country post-election survey data from CSES and CNEP are used in comparison with an in-depth analysis of the recent elections in Turkey. For the Turkish case we use panel survey data from 2007 , 2011, 2015 and 2018 general elections and cross-sectional survey data prior to the 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey. The empirical focus is on testing the expectation that as perceived electoral fairness declines so will systemic level performance indicators of democracy.