Why Decentralization Fails: A Case Study of Turkey

Abstract

In Turkey, administrative decentralization is a political issue rather than a technical one. the central government follows up centralization policies associated with intensive administrative supervision with three mechanisms according to ‘who governs the muni-cipality’: The opposition municipalities, especially from the main opposition party, CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) are systematically supervised by the inspectors of the Interior Ministry while appointed trustees (kayyım or kayyum) are given control in the municipalities governed by the pro-Kurdish party (HDP). To expand on these mechanisms, the empirical data in this study were drawn from fieldwork conducted in April 2015 in the Istanbul metropolitan municipality (IMM), two district municipalities, and the Istanbul gubernatorial (IG). This was important to show how the Municipal Act No. 6360 transformed the relationship between the gubernatorial and the metropolitan municipality, and how the metropolitan municipality exercises centralization over district municipalities, especially the ones governed by opposition parties. As a result, in a highly centralized public administration, municipalities do not yet have sufficient autonomous competence over public services. The absence of an institutionalized state structure represents the main reason for the administrative centralization. On this point, reasons for excessive centralization in Turkey were analyzed within the framework of state institutionalization. The institutionalization problems of the Turkish State represent the main reason for the failure of decentralization policies in the country.