Municipally owned corporations and autonomy in centralized states—A comparative analysis of Turkey and Israel

IMPACT

This article investigates the autonomy and control of municipally owned corporations (MOCs) in the context of two centralized states: Turkey and Israel. It identifies the strategic and operational autonomy of MOCs, referring to logics of appropriateness and consequentiality explanations for factual autonomy. The study emphasizes the hybrid nature of most MOCs, subject to both private and public law. It proposes a new typology based on MOCs’ legal structures to address limitations of current typologies. The comparative analysis using the new typology provides nuanced understanding of MOC autonomy in centralized states and equips practitioners with insights that can lead to tangible improvements. Results may steer further comparative research to identify broader patterns of control in MOC governance. They also provide practitioners and policy-makers with insights on fostering more efficient and effective MOC governance, and proposing evidence-based policy recommendations that balance the autonomy and control of MOCs.

ABSTRACT

Corporatization of local government is a common practice in centralized states, where municipally owned corporations (MOCs) can increase local autonomy and generate independent municipal revenue. The authors’ comparative analysis of MOC autonomy in Turkey and Israel shows that, in traditional service areas, public accountability is prioritized over performance in MOCs. The traditional distinction between MOCs based on public law and private law was found to be inadequate, as most MOCs are hybrid and subject to both public and private law. The findings highlight the importance of central government control as a key driver behind MOC autonomy formation. This research contributes to the agency, local government and MOC literatures by introducing a new MOC typology based on factual autonomy which can be operationalized to study cross-sectional and cross-sectoral patterns for MOC autonomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Agencification
• arm’s-length bodies
• autonomy
• centralization
• Israel
• local government
• municipally owned corporations (MOCs)
• Turkey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Irmak Özer

Irmak Özer is a PhD student in the urban policy planning and local governments programme at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Her main research interests are municipally owned corporations, financialization of local government, local governance and urban politics.

Evrim Tan

Evrim Tan is a post-doctoral researcher/lecturer at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Belgium. His research broadly speaks to the literature of public governance, digital governance, local governance and political sciences. He is the author of ‘Decentralization and governance capacity: the case of Turkey’ and the co-editor of ‘The new digital era governance: how new digital technologies are shaping public governance’.

Eran Razin

Eran Razin is a Professor of Geography and Director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and holds the Leon Safdie Chair in Urban Studies. He specializes in comparative local government, urban planning and development.

Anna Hazan

Anna Hazan teaches at the School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa and at the Public Administration and Policy Department, Sapir Academic College, Israel. She served for many years as Director of the Local Development Department of Israel's Ministry of Interior and has authored numerous publications on local government in Israel.