Political parties and forestry relations in Turkey's general elections in 2015

Abstract

Political parties have important roles in the political decision making process on identifying the demand for public goods and services. In this context, political parties have significant impacts on identification and implementation of forestry policies. Their election manifestos/declarations have statements on forests and forestry, which are important sources of information for those parties' forestry policies. In this study, election manifestos of 11 parties that participated in the general elections that took place on June 7, 2015 and November 1, 2015 in Turkey were studied. Data were analysed with Document Analyses and Content Analyses, then evaluated under eight titles. As a result of these assessments, the conclusion was that; there are significant differences between the parties' approaches to forests: some of them consider the forest not as an entity but as a source of income, developing populist discourses that are sure to appeal to the general public, through ambitious or impossible promises. It can also be said that the political parties fail to base their views on forests on reliable data.