DATASETS

The professionalization of armies has led them to become part of electoral politics in novel ways, but with some unforeseen implications for democracy. Unlike conscript-based armies, professional armies are now composed of service members who are eligible to vote. Accordingly, military votes, including those of military families, have reached a quantity that has the potential to affect election outcomes at both the local and national levels. Increasing awareness about this new fact has changed the way in which politicians approach the military. While some politicians have sought to influence when and where military units and large bases would be positioned and relocated with the aim of affecting local electoral demographics, others have resorted to the extensive use of pro-military language during election campaigns with the presumption that it would secure service members’ vote or, in some cases, their support in a contested election scenario.

While lavish military budgets, generous salaries, and retirement benefits are widely considered to be sufficient to earn the political support of senior military leaders in most cases, little is known as to what factors affect political choices and voting behavior of mid-grade and junior soldiers who are more critical than ever in politicians’ election calculus and who may be asked to fire upon protesters in a contested election scenario. The project seeks to probe the effect of various factors, including pro-military election strategy, the inclusion of veteran officers in the campaign trail, the government’s security policy, especially the use of military force abroad, and incidence and intensity of domestic violence, on active-duty soldiers’ political leanings and voting behavior. I collect election data from ballot boxes where soldiers and their families cast their votes in elections between 1950 and 2015 in Turkey using the databases of Turkey's Supreme Election Council and Statistical Institute. I am interested in including other cases where military voting data is available.

The HOCA dataset contains information about career paths of about 17,000 Turkish officers, including all generals and general staff officers in the Army, Navy, and Ar Force, at the individual level, specifically their academic performance— their military academy and general staff college graduation rankings—and career advancement—the highest rank and office achieved. The HOCA data is drawn from yearbooks, military academy and staff college graduation albums, the Supreme Military Council records, the official gazette, governmental decrees, and national newspapers during and in the wake of my field work in Turkey.

The AFSOC dataset contains biographical information about two types of power holders in the Turkish military hierarchy: general staff officers and flag officers (generals and admirals). It consists all of the 9640 general staff officers and 2150 flag officers who have served in the three main services of the Turkish armed forces—the army, navy, and air force— throughout the republican period between 1848 and 2015. TAFSOC data was drawn from general staff college yearbooks, military academy albums, and personal memoirs of officers.

The MIHSA dataset contains biographical information about 11,450 individuals, approximately one-sixth of the entire officer corps, who graduated from Bursa Işıklar Military High School, one of the three military high schools in Turkey along with Kuleli in Istanbul and Maltepe in Izmir, and served in the Turkish Army and the Air force between 1900 and 2002. Data in the MIHSA dataset was gathered from the yearbooks and graduation catalogues. 

AFSOC and MIHSA datasets are unique in terms of their content and temporal breadth. They provide a comprehensive overview of the changing and enduring characteristics of the Turkish military elite in terms of their socio-economic and ethnic origins, professional background and performance in the three main services of the armed forces—the army, navy, and air force—since the foundation of military schools and academies for the training of a modern officer corps.