Turkish local government
The need for reform
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10280980 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aykut Polatoğlu (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 156-171 |
| Publication date | 2000-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Middle Eastern Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0026-3206 • E-ISSN: 1743-7881 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00263200008701337 |
| OpenAlex | W1990745867 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Turkey does not have a strong tradition of local government, and local government has not come into being as a result of an indigenous development. This characteristic of the system has to be kept in mind in order to make a fair evaluation of what is to follow. Turkish local government has been on the agenda of the nation during the last 15 years because of a growing interest in its affairs. This growing interest is directly related to efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of public services. Inadequacy of central agencies and their field units in handling public services, their inability to respond quickly to problems, the intention or effort to decrease the size of the central administrative apparatus and such like have all directed attention to local government for possible solutions to such problems. Discussions have been taking place at central and local levels in order to transfer certain public services to the local governments. Continuous requests from metropolitan municipalities ask for the transfer of additional public services to be placed under their authority. Politicians are making public statements advocating the transfer of additional public services to the local government authorities, thus enlarging their field of activity. Within this framework one gets the impression that in the near future there will take place a new division of work between central and local government and the latter will assume new responsibilities.' At this point the following questions have to be answered before transferring new responsibilities to local government: Do the local authorities function efficiently? To what extent are they effective? Are they ready to assume additional responsibilities? To what extent can local people participate in the administration and exercise control over their activities? If we do not have affirmative answers to the above questions, giving them new responsibilities and enlarging their field of activity will not bring any benefits. Our objective here is to evaluate critically the structure and functioning of Turkish local government and to try to answer the above questions, and propose certain measures for increasing local authorities' efficiency and effectiveness
Business · Central government · Government (linguistics · Indigenous · Local government · Metropolitan area · Order (exchange · Political science · Public relations · Turkish · Finance · Public Administration · Public Administration and Governance · Turkish Urban and Social Issues
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2006 - 2022 (17) |
| Highly cited | No |