Strategic convergence, ideological discounting, and pre-electoral coalition formation: evidence from the 2023 Turkish presidential elections

This article studies the mechanisms underlying opposition coordination in the 2023 Turkish presidential elections. We argue that the Nation’s Alliance materialized only after the opposition parties agreed on a single presidential candidate despite earlier harmonization of certain policy preferences and discounting of controversial matters like the Kurdish issue. Conversely, the People’s Alliance experienced no such difficulties given the member parties’ ideological proximity and unwavering support for the incumbent president’s re-election. This paper contributes to the literature on pre-electoral coalition formation in competitive authoritarianism by using big data and computational techniques to emphasize the significance of strategic convergence and ideological discounting.