AN ANALYSIS OF TURKEY REGARDING THE DECENTRALIZATION AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM

Abstract

In the post-80s, within the context of liberalization and globalization a reform on the local governments was called for all around the world. In line with this trend, reforms were put into practice in Turkey. However, these reforms were not systematically implemented up to 2000s. After the Justice and Development Party came to power, local governments were financially and administratively strengthened. Local governments have begun to come to the fore within the administrative structure in terms of authority, duties and responsibilities. In the last decade they have been the driving force of the economic production being in harmony with the market. Apart from this general picture of transformation, the government has carried out two important policies. The first one is the closure of minor local government units (municipalities and villages). The second policy is the enlargement of the borders of metropolitan and provincial municipalities. In many settlements, the process of enlargement has been implemented to include the first policy. At the end of the year 2012, a law which epitomized these decade-long reforms on local governments was passed and with this law the outline of this reform process was drawn and concretized. This paper aims at briefly explaining the mentioned reform process and evaluating it from different perspectives.