Redistributive Consequences of Competitive Authoritarianism: Evidence from the Turkish Housing Administration
Abstract: Although a large literature exists in political science on the nature of hybrid regimes, few studies explore their direct redistributive consequences. As such, we investigate how the rise of Turkey’s competitive authoritarian regime, via the incumbency of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2014, has led to the selective distribution of public housing project contracts, as administered by the state-run Turkish Mass Housing Development Administration (TOKİ). Firstly, with the incumbency of Erdoğan, we find robust evidence that provinces voting in favour of his Justice and Development Party (AK Parti or AKP) receive more TOKİ contracts, whilst those with larger vote share differentials between the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main opposition party, and the AKP receive fewer. However, before Erdoğan’s arrival, we also find that the vote shares of either party remain strongly uncorrelated with TOKİ redistribution. Consequently, by exploiting the institutional shift of the political landscape between 2003 2018, we provide suggestive evidence that the rise of competitive authoritarianism via Erdogan has transformed TOKİ from a once neutral public good to one of pure political graft.
