Study and Analysis of Factors Affecting Citizens 'Political Participation; Case Study: Turkmen Election Participation in Twelfth Presidential Election

Abstract

In heterogeneous cultural-religious systems, recognizing the variables affecting citizens' voting behavior and political participation is vital for good policy-making and management. The issue of research is the analysis of the factors influencing the Turkmen people to vote for the discourse of moderation in the twelfth presidential election. This research was descriptive in terms of orientation, application and type of research and the survey method was used. The statistical population is the citizens of Turkmen ethnic group in Golestan and 344 people were randomly selected as the statistical sample. Reliability and validity of the research instrument were measured using factor load coefficient, combined reliability, Cronbach's alpha, convergent validity and divergent validity. The data were analyzed using Smart-PLS and SPSS software. One-sample t-test and Friedman test were used to test the research hypotheses. Findings show that candidate personality traits, electoral expectations, influence of political-religious trustees, closeness to religious-ethnic ideologies, regional developments in the region and virtual networks had the greatest impact on the Turkmen people's vote for moderation in the twelfth presidential election. The findings of the ranking also show, respectively, election expectations, closeness to religious ideologies, historical factors, global-regional developments, the influence of political-religious trustees, candidate personality traits and virtual networks play the most important role in the tendency of the Turkmen people to the discourse of moderate.

Keywords

• turkmen people
• political participation
• elections
• moderation discourse
• twelfth presidency