Replication Data for: How Voters Respond to Presidential Assaults on Checks and Balances: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Turkey

Why do voters support executive aggrandizement? One possible answer is that they do so because they think this will ease their preferred leader’s hand in putting their partisan vision into action, provided that the leader will continue winning elections. We study this phenomenon through a survey experiment in Turkey, by manipulating voters’ perceptions about the potential results of the first presidential election after a constitutional referendum of executive aggrandizement. We find that voters from both sides display what we call “elastic support” for executive aggrandizement; i.e. they change previously revealed constitutional preferences in response to varying winning chances. This elasticity increases not only when citizens feel greater social distance to perceived political “others” (i.e. affective polarization), but also when voters are concerned about economic management in a potential post-incumbent era. Our findings contribute to the literature on how polarization and economic anxiety contribute to executive aggrandizement and democratic backsliding.选民为何会支持行政权扩张（executive aggrandizement）？一种可行的解释是，只要心仪的领导人能够持续赢得选举，选民便会认为此举可助力该领导人将自身党派政见付诸实践。本研究基于土耳其开展的一项调查实验，通过操控选民对行政权扩张宪法公投后首场总统选举潜在结果的认知，对这一现象展开探讨。研究发现，两派选民均对行政权扩张表现出我们所称的“弹性支持”：即他们会根据领导人胜选概率的变化，调整此前已表露的宪法偏好。这种弹性不仅会在选民与感知中的政治“他者”社会距离拉大时（即情感极化（affective polarization）加剧）得到增强，也会在选民担忧后执政时代的经济治理状况时有所提升。本研究为探讨极化与经济焦虑如何推动行政权扩张与民主倒退（democratic backsliding）的相关学术文献贡献了新的研究见解。