Framework to understand policy capacity of regional institutions in a state centric tradition; case of development agencies in Turkey

Download

index.pdf

Date

2016

Author

Yalçın, Gökhan

Metadata

Show full item record

Item Usage Stats

231
views

176
downloads

Transformation of states, as the most complex political organization of the human rationality, has been a critical topic of contemporary governing problematic, as it fundamentally alters the conventional methods of policy making. Functionality of the statehood as the pivotal policy actor has been challenged by supra-national as well as sub-national policy actors and conclusively states, as a social concept, somehow are obliged to re-organize their internal architecture to increase their capabilities. Within this framework of evolution in the understanding of the statehood, political and functional significance of the regional and local scale have gained an important momentum with the rise of globalization of production systems. In this changing institutional eco-system some policy actors were demolished yet some others have emerged due to the new conditionalities of contemporary policy making. This conflict ridden process of transformation necessitates a conceptualization of the capacities of new institutional fixes whether they adopt into local policy making eco-system or they will be isolated as a result of the resistance that might come from the ground based realities that are intrinsic to the nature of local development and decentralization. Emergence of the Turkey’s development agencies in a similar manner can be conceptualized as the will of the state to decentralize some its fundamental abilities with a centrally forged motivation that is discussed to be inadequately supported by the local policy makers. Therefore, embeddedness of the regional scale and agencies as the flagship institutional entity of regions, into main policy making channels of state can be argued to be a major element that determines the ideal functionality of the development agencies. Thus said, within this context, this thesis aims to understand given all the bottlenecks and policy realities of the time being, how policy capacity can be generated in the development agencies in a context that historically inherits local and central tension yet desperately in need of inter-scalar policy coordination for a better delivery of the public policies. Findings of the study indicate that multi-scalar mobility the development agencies with unique position in the local institutional eco-system can play a critical role to generate and sustain policy capacity in the given contextual framework.

Subject Keywords

City planning., Regional planning., Local government., Municipal government.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12619756/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/25479

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Socio-psychological dimensions of the participatory processes : in the case of the local government and NGO cooperation in participatory democracy project Kulözü, Neslihan; Ataöv Demirkan, Anlı; Tekeli, İlhan; Department of City and Regional Planning (2012) The transformation of the planning paradigm from rational comprehensive planning to participatory planning is commonly explained by the shift from instrumental rationality to communicative rationality. Based on communicative rationality, participatory planning approach has its own assumptions. One of the assumptions and pre-conditions of the realization of participatory planning practices is consensus-building. However, because of context-dependency of participatory planning processes, building consensus at...
The critical analysis of alternative local government experiences in Turkey: the case of Hozat Municipality Bozkurt, Engin; Ersoy, Melih; Department of Urban Policy Planning and Local Governments (2011) When analyzed within Marxist theory understandings, local governments can be considered as a body of administrative, political, social and economic relations which are defined in a certain spatial scale based on uneven development of capital accumulation. This definition removes the local governments from the context of a simple organizational-administrative problem and places them into a political context. Hence, as experience and strategies of socialist customs in our country is investigated regarding loc...
Participation to administration in capitalist society : theoretical and political limitations of the critical and radical administrative theories Güven, Erdem; Üstüner, Mustafa Yılmaz; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2012) This thesis aims at critically examining the specific place of the "critical" and "radical" theories within both the theory of public administration and political theory, particularly in terms of the discursive participatory framework they offer. The fundamental question dealt with is whether or not the power and dependence analyses of these approaches (which are treated as 'marginal' in the field) is convincing for an egalitarian, comprehensive and socially transformative democratic governance. Since a dis...
A Critical evaluation of local poverty alleviation policies: the case of three provinces in Turkey Önez Çetin, Zuhal; Ersoy, Melih; Department of Urban Policy Planning and Local Governments (2012) The world has witnessed a transformation process associated with the drastic changes in social, political and economic spheres under the constraints of neo-liberalism with opening up new challenges for humanity. At that context, as a global problem, poverty has been aggravating at the world-wide and now urban areas are more exposed to risks of poverty. In this regard, reforms of that restructuring process have centered on the requirement of local administrations at poverty struggle. The purpose of this stud...
The contribution of strategic spatial planning to the establishment of democratic governance structures Soysal, Begüm; Ataöv Demirkan, Anlı; Department of City and Regional Planning (2008) This thesis aims to search the contribution of strategic spatial planning to the establishment of democratic governance structures. Within this aim; it discusses strategic spatial planning with respect to its procedural and organizational characteristics and the notion of governance with respect to the issue of participatory democracy. Additionally; it argues that strategic spatial planning includes some conditions including that enhance the development of democratic governance. In doing these; it both cove...

Citation Formats

G. Yalçın, “Framework to understand policy capacity of regional institutions in a state centric tradition; case of development agencies in Turkey,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2016.