The Neoliberal Transformation of Local Government in Turkey and the Contracting Out of Municipal Services: Implications for Public Accountability

Abstract

This research examines the extent to which neoliberal reforms have reshaped local government in Turkey. Two middle-sized provincial municipalities have been chosen in order to offer a comparative perspective. An important element of neoliberal reforms is the privatization of municipal services such as garbage collection and transportation through contracting out. This contribution describes the changes in the way municipal services are provided and how these changes reshape local power structures and labour relations, and public accountability in particular. It concludes that the two municipalities acquired new institutional capacities to shape their own developmental pathways but still to a large extent the paradigms within which the municipalities operate are being determined and constrained by the rules and regulations set out by the central government. Furthermore, the reforms encourage a shift of municipal affairs from public to private law and lead to bypassing of traditional checks and balances.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Sylvia Bergh for her suggestions and effort in putting this special issue together. The staff of the municipalities we carried out our research have been instrumental in providing valuable information and insight into the functioning of local governments. We are grateful for their help. The usual caveat applies.

Notes

¹ Public–private partnerships exist in Turkey; however, other forms of mixed delivery such as public–community partnerships never became policy recommendations and thus are disregarded here.

² For studies on metropolitan municipalities, see, among others, Erder and Incioglu (2008) and Heper (1989).

³ Solid waste collection and cleaning, public transportation, water and sewage, green areas and parks, construction permits, municipal police, fire-fighting, emergency aid, ambulances, inner-city traffic, funerals and cemeteries, culture and art, etc.

⁴ The Bank of Provinces was previously the Bank of Municipalities but changed its name in 1944 when the special provincial administrations were included as its beneficiaries.

⁵ See the interview lists in the Appendix.

⁶ Local Agenda 21 was launched by UNDP Turkey in order to make local governments in Turkey more participatory and aimed at increasing decentralization and democratization. It was in line with Action 21 and sustainability concerns which were expressed at the UN Earth Summit in Rio.

⁷ We underline that local knowledge of the market prices is an important factor in tendering services because state planning institutions determine the national catalogue of market prices for buying services, such as excavation fees, daily labour etc. which are, as stated by the municipal officials in Van, higher than the local market prices.

⁸ 71.5 per cent of the €16.5 million project was funded by the EU and the rest was borrowed from the Bank of Provinces.

⁹ ÇAKAB (Çanakkale Katı Atık Yönetim Birliği) stands for the Çanakkale Solid Waste Management Association. Further information can be found on their website: http://www.cakab.org.

¹⁰ HADEP (People's Democracy Party) was banned by the constitutional court in 2002 due to its stance on the Kurdish conflict. The party held the municipality of Van between 1999 and 2004 but then lost the elections to AKP (the party that has held the national government since 2002). The party cadres of HADEP later formed the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi) which won the local election in Van in 2009. The party was later dissolved by the constitutional court the same year, again, due to its stance on the Kurdish conflict. The party that follows the political tradition of HADEP is BDP.