Prolonged Guesthood: How Syrian Refugees Shaped Turkish Politics?

This study investigates the effects of Syrian refugee inflow on the voting behavior of natives in Turkey. We utilize administrative data at the provincial level, employ a difference-in-differences strategy for the identification and distance-based instrumental variable to account for the endogenous refugee settlement. We find a positive and significant effect of refugees on the right-wing nationalistic party's (MHP) vote share, while there are no effects on the vote share of the incumbent party (AKP) and the main opposition party (CHP). Investigating the evolution of voting reaction after 2011 shows that AKP vote share first increased in 2015 then dropped in 2018 and 2023. When the heterogeneity of refugee hosting places is considered, CHP vote share increases in highly urban and lower population areas. Overall, our results indicate a considerable voting reaction from natives. We argue that perceived threats of natives based on their sociocultural positions and sociotropic voting behavior explain the natives' reaction.