IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v39y2021i1p204-225.html

Political dynamics of local government reform in a development context: The case of Turkey

Author

Listed:
  • Osman SavaÅŸkan

Abstract

This article examines the political dynamics of local government reform in Turkey during 2000s and 2010s, showing how the reform was implemented in a way that reproduced central state power. Contributing to debates on the relationship between state rescaling and decentralisation, it argues that the dynamics of electoral politics are key to determining the nature of institutional changes affecting central-local relations. In the Turkish context, decentralisation did not align with the interests of the ruling Justice and Development Party, given that opposition parties could potentially win local elections and control local municipal councils. By questioning the significance of the recent trend of decentralisation and the devolution of authority to lower levels of government in Turkey, this article contributes to the literature on the limits of decentralisation, especially in non-western contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Osman SavaÅŸkan, 2021. "Political dynamics of local government reform in a development context: The case of Turkey," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(1), pages 204-225, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:39:y:2021:i:1:p:204-225
    DOI: 10.1177/2399654420943903
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2399654420943903
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2399654420943903?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee (ed.), 2006. "Decentralization and Local Governance in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262524546, December.
    2. Jose A. Puppim De Oliveira & Yijia Jing & Paul Collins & George M. Guess & Jun Ma, 2015. "The Risks of Chinese Subnational Debt for Public Financial Management," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(2), pages 128-139, May.
    3. Brenner, Neil, 2004. "New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270064.
    4. Tim Dorlach & Osman Savaşkan, 2018. "The Political Economy of Economic and Social Policy in Contemporary Turkey: An Introduction to the Special Issue," Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 311-317, July.
    5. Ayli̇n Topal, 2012. "Uneven Access to Local Power: Entrepreneurial Domination in the Design of Local Development in Chihuahua, Mexico," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(6), pages 1166-1182, November.
    6. Bae‐Gyoon Park, 2008. "Uneven Development, Inter‐scalar Tensions, and the Politics of Decentralization in South Korea," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 40-59, March.
    7. Bae-Gyoon Park, 2013. "State Rescaling in Non-Western Contexts," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1115-1122, July.
    8. Can Umut Çiner, 2014. "Reconsidering the Role of the Prefects in Turkey: Public Policies and Metropolization," International Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 445-455, July.
    9. Berk Esen & Sebnem Gumuscu, 2019. "Killing Competitive Authoritarianism Softly: The 2019 Local Elections in Turkey," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 317-342, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mustafa Kemal Bayirbağ, 2013. "Continuity and Change in Public Policy: Redistribution, Exclusion and State Rescaling in Turkey," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1123-1146, July.
    2. Xiaobo Su, 2012. "Transnational Regionalization and the Rescaling of the Chinese State," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(6), pages 1327-1347, June.
    3. Dong-Wan Gimm, 2013. "Fracturing Hegemony: Regionalism and State Rescaling in South Korea, 1961–71," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1147-1167, July.
    4. Loraine Kennedy, 2017. "State restructuring and emerging patterns of subnational policy-making and governance in China and India," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(1), pages 6-24, February.
    5. Yanpeng Jiang & Paul Waley, 2020. "Small horse pulls big cart in the scalar struggles of competing administrations in Anhui Province, China," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(2), pages 329-346, March.
    6. Li Wang & Heng Chao & Guicai Li, 2019. "Diversification and Local Embeddedness: The Rescaling of National New Area Governance in Post-Reform China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-22, November.
    7. Bae-Gyoon Park, 2013. "State Rescaling in Non-Western Contexts," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1115-1122, July.
    8. Zhigang Li & Jiang Xu & Anthony G O Yeh, 2014. "State Rescaling and the Making of City-Regions in the Pearl River Delta, China," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(1), pages 129-143, February.
    9. Nadir Kinossian, 2017. "Re-colonising the Arctic: The preparation of spatial planning policy in Murmansk Oblast, Russia," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 221-238, March.
    10. Tak-Wing Ngo & Cunyi Yin & Zhilin Tang, 2017. "Scalar restructuring of the Chinese state: The subnational politics of development zones," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(1), pages 57-75, February.
    11. Renhao Yang & Qingyuan Yang, 2020. "Restructuring the State: Policy Transition of Construction Land Supply in Urban and Rural China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    12. Geneviève Zembri-Mary & Virginie Engrand-Linder, 2023. "Urban planning law in the face of the Olympic challenge: Between innovation and criticism of exceptional urban regeneration," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 38(4), pages 369-388, June.
    13. Leonardo Garavito González (Editor) & Germán Cortés Millán (Editor), 2023. "Defensas Colectivas del Territorio en América Latina: persistencias y mutaciones," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, number 168.
    14. Fulong Wu, 2016. "China's Emergent City-Region Governance: A New Form of State Spatial Selectivity through State-orchestrated Rescaling," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(6), pages 1134-1151, November.
    15. Steven Tufts, 2007. "Emerging Labour Strategies in Toronto's Hotel Sector: Toward a Spatial Circuit of Union Renewal," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(10), pages 2383-2404, October.
    16. Kevin Fox Gotham, 2014. "Racialization and Rescaling: Post-Katrina Rebuilding and the Louisiana Road Home Program," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 773-790, May.
    17. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & Marie-Laure Breuillé, 2023. "Citizen preferences and the architecture of government," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 537-585, October.
    18. Simin Yan & Anna Growe, 2022. "Regional Planning, Land-Use Management, and Governance in German Metropolitan Regions—The Case of Rhine–Neckar Metropolitan Region," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-24, November.
    19. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    20. Federico Savini, 2013. "The Governability of National Spatial Planning: Light Instruments and Logics of Governmental Action in Strategic Urban Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(8), pages 1592-1607, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:39:y:2021:i:1:p:204-225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.