Policy-making at local level: an analysis of Turkish municipalities

2018 ◽  
pp. 105-120
Author(s):  
Ulaş Bayraktar
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Service Provider ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Policy Cycle ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Radical Transformation

Turkish local governments have undergone a radical transformation since the 1980s. Accompanied by a rhetoric of decentralising and democratising reforms, related legal changes have been criticised in the light of either nationalist or democratic, participatory concerns. At the heart of such important waves of legal reforms lay the municipalities as the main service provider in urban settings. This chapter presents a general overview of the state of policy analysis in Turkish municipalities. It argues that municipalities governed by very strong executives, prioritise populist services delivered through subcontracts and controlled weakly by political and civil actors and arbitrarily by the central government. The classical public policy cycle approach will inform the discussion.

Building an Infrastructure to Manage Electronic Services

2001 ◽  
pp. 71-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ake Gronlund
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
Citizen Interactions ◽  
Stabilizing Factors ◽  
General Technical

For an organization to be able to deliver electronic services efficiently and professionally requires a “service infrastructure” including organizational solutions for logistics and customer (citizen) interactions. This chapter reviews a study covering three years of efforts by nine cities in eight European countries in developing such solutions. Generally, Web projects were seen as technical projects; though in fact issues pertaining to users and organization were most important, they were largely neglected. We found 12 distinct “challenges,” situations where the setting changed and the process was found in a stage of improvisation until new stability was achieved. The challenges fall into four categories, concerning users (4 challenges), organization (6), economy (1) and technology (1). We found that the overall process was largely unstructured and improvised. Stabilizing factors were central government policies (national, European Union), the general technical development, market demands and a cadre of Web agents” fostered within the organizations over years of Web projects. There was typically a missing infrastructure link, a body competent of managing the whole process of bundling services from different service providers and publishing them in a coherent fashion, providing support to service providers during the process of inventing, refining and evaluating services, improving operations and conducting the necessary but typically ignored activities of analysis of service quality and policy making. Our conclusion is that there is a great lack of strategic leadership in the field of electronic services in local governments in Europe. This is a big problem considering the importance of that sector and the challenges it is facing.

scholarly journals Seducing for Truth and Justice: Civil Society Initiatives for the 1965 Mass Violence in Indonesia

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
The World

The article examines both civil society initiatives that seek to address the mass violence of 1965 and 1966 and the state's responses to them. Unlike other political-transition contexts in the world, a transitional justice approach is apparently a formula that state authorities have found difficult to implement nationally for this particular case. The central government has, through its institutions, sporadically responded to some of the calls from civil society groups and has even initiated policy reforms to support such initiatives. Nevertheless, these responses were not sustained and any suggested programmes have always failed to be completed or implemented. Simultaneously, however, NGOs and victims are also voicing their demands at the local level. Many of their initiatives involve not only communities but also local authorities, including in some cases the local governments. In some aspects, these “bottom-up” approaches are more successful than attempts to create change at the national level. Such approaches challenge what Kieran McEvoy refers to as an innate “seductive” quality of transitional justice, but at the same time these approaches do, in fact, aim to “seduce” the state to adopt measures for truth and justice.

scholarly journals National-Local Networks and Immigration Governance

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-376
Author(s):  
Jill L. Tao
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Local Autonomy ◽  
Local Networks ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
The Impact

The ability to regulate the flow of goods, capital and people across borders is one of the defining characteristics of nation-state political power. But there is not always agreement between the central government and local officials as to the desirability of immigration, where local governments may desire greater, or fewer, numbers of immigrants, depending on the local economy and labor needs. In South Korea, a unitary form of government offers an opportunity to examine the policy distance between the national government’s stance on immigration based on the politics of the ruling party, and the attitudes of local officials who work for metropolitan-level governments (those with a population of one million or more). I look at the impact of local economic market needs on local attitudes towards national immigration policy through the lens of intergovernmental relations and Lipsky’s concept of bureaucratic discretion. Comparing two cases drawn from local governments in South Korea with dissimilar economic bases but similar levels of local autonomy, I find that economic needs at the local level are addressed by local approaches to immigration policy. Contrary to expectations, the cases illustrate the relative importance of fiscal autonomy and a new understanding for political autonomy. These cases illustrate the need for caution when applying political and institutional theory within new contexts and offer new variables for future investigations of local autonomy.

scholarly journals Introducing Municipal Bond Markets in Malaysia : An Assessment of Present Market Characteristics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukaramah Harun ◽  
Ting Ding Hooi ◽  
Hussin Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Municipal Bonds ◽  
Municipal Bond ◽  
Alternative Source ◽  
Capital Financing ◽  
Basic Infrastructure

In developed countries, urban growth has multiplied the demand for investment in basic infrastructure services such as water supply, waste removal, roads and mass transportation. At the same time, decentralization strategies have shifted the responsibility for much of these investments to the local governments. This decentralized investment requires the development of decentralized capital financing. No longer can a central government pay for local investment by raising national taxes or borrowings on international markets and using the funds simply to construct projects at the local level. The introduction of municipal bonds is one of the alternative source of funds to finance the escalating costs of financing local governments. This paper discusses the conditions underlying the development of municipal credit markets, which Malaysia can use to provide a vehicle to narrow the local government’s resource gap through debt funding.  

scholarly journals How Human Rights Cross-Pollinate and Take Root: Local Governments and Refugees in Turkey

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-157
Author(s):  
Elif Durmuş
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Refugee Policies ◽  
Failure To Protect ◽  
Central Government Agencies

AbstractThe human rights regime—as law, institutions and practice—has been facing criticism for decades regarding its effectiveness, particularly in terms of unsatisfactory overall implementation and the failure to protect the most vulnerable who do not enjoy the protection of their States: refugees. Turkey is the country hosting the largest refugee population, with around four million at the end of May 2020 (https://www.unhcr.org/tr/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2020/06/UNHCR-Turkey-Operational-Update-May-2020.pdf). As an administratively centralised country, Turkey’s migration policy is implemented by central government agencies, but this has not proved sufficient to guarantee the human rights of refugees on the ground. Meanwhile, in connection with urbanisation, decentralisation and globalisation, local governments around the world are receiving increasing attention from migration studies, political science, law, sociology and anthropology. In human rights scholarship, the localisation of human rights and the potential role of local governments have been presented as ways to counter the shortcomings in the effectiveness of the human rights regime and discourse. While local governments may have much untapped potential, a thorough analysis of the inequalities between local governments in terms of access to resources and opportunities is essential. The Turkish local governments which form the basis of this research, operate in a context of legal ambiguity concerning their competences and obligations in the area of migration. They also have to deal with large differences when it comes to resources and workload. In practice, therefore, there is extreme divergence amongst municipalities in the extent to which they engage with refugee policies. This chapter seeks to answer the question why and how certain local governments in Turkey come to proactively engage in policy-making that improves the realisation of refugees’ rights. Exploratory grounded field research among Turkish local governments reveals four main factors that enable and facilitate the engagement of local governments in refugee policies: (1) the capacity of and institutionalisation in local governments; (2) the dissemination of practices and norms surrounding good local migration and rights-based governance through networks; (3) the availability of cooperation and coordination with other actors in the field, and (4) political will. Collectively, these factors illustrate how a new norm—the norm that local governments can and ought to engage in policy-making improving the rights of refugees—is cross-pollinating and taking root among Turkish local governments. This understanding will provide valuable insights into how norms are developed, travel and are institutionalised within social and institutional networks, and how differences in access, capacity, political and cooperative opportunities may facilitate and obscure the path to policies improving human rights on the ground.

scholarly journals DINAMIKA OTONOMI DAERAH DALAM PENGEMBANGAN METODE PARTISIPASI PUBLIK PEMBENTUKAN PERATURAN PERUNDANG-UNDANGAN (2)

Yuridika ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Herlambang Perdana Wiratraman
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Regional Government ◽  
Public Policy Making

This article is taken from the research to study local democracy dynamic in regional autonomy transition, especially after the enactment of Law No. 32 of 2004 concerning on Regional Government and Law No 10 of 2004 concerning on Legislation Making. These laws have influenced the process of public policy making at field. This research analyse the implementation the word ’berhak’ (right to) as stipulated under article 53 of Law No. 10 of 2004. From this point of view, this continues by mapping the development strategy in making legislation at regional level, mainly by searching to what extend public participation processes would contribute at that level. In local political context, the research aims to study how political participation at local level fully involves citizen to take decision, especially connected to: First, economic democracy which is a participatory magement all citizen in productive assets and collective property rights. Second, politic pluralism democracy which is an understanding and sensitivity over pluralistic and locality aspects of the needs and aspirations any citizen in public policy making. The research method uses a non-doctrinal legal research, especially by emplying sociology of law and political economy of law. The result is written in descriptive-analytic model. The research only limits on the development of public participatory method, so then it would have critical points in reforming law and institution, especially to guarantee public participation rights. The recommendations are: First, the needs of key action and more participative for reforming all policies at regional level, by emphasizing through (1) state institution reconstruction which more guarantees citizen political participation; (2) the shifting from ‘top-down’ to ‘bottom up’ processes; (3) the empowerment of people (capacity building) and local institutional strengthening. Second, strengthening legal framework for public participation, either at legislation or regulation levels. The public participation initiative through regional regulation or to improve parliament mechanism order are important to develop public participation methods in local regulation making. Furthermore, The research needs to be followed up by studying deeply about how the legal framework to secure better should be formulated, especialy in responding public participation, either better procedural control or substantial control from public. This research contributes partly in providing possible models and [legal] formulations which are more responsive to the people needs and justice, also to strengthen democratization processes in local governance system.Keywords : Public Participations, Local Autonomy, Local Regulations

The World of the West European Planner: A View from Inside

1974 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-330
Author(s):  
K. H. F. Dyson
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Full Range ◽  
The West ◽  
Analysis And Evaluation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
The World

EXISTINGTH EORIES AND METHODS OF GOVERNMENTAL PLANNING are incomplete. They neglect very often, for instance, the full range of factors which shape the behaviour and effectiveness of central government planners in liberal democratic regimes. It is essential, therefore, to refine the basic paradigm upon which analysis and evaluation of the activities of central planners is typically based if the major problems of their work are to be clearly understood.Central planners are concerned with the improvement of the intellectual dimension of public policy-making at both national and increasingly supranational levels in Western Europe by longer-term perspectives, forward co-ordination and more sophisticated discussion of alternatives. They seek to guide or control the activities of a group of agencies, a particular governmental system or even of society as a whole.

scholarly journals Rethinking Performance Management Practices in Local Administrations? An Evaluation of BV, CPA, And WPI Practices in the United Kingdom

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Demokaan Demirel
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Area ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Local Actors

AbstractPerformance is a fundamental tool that improves results oriented on public administration. Performance management applications have become very popular in public institutions over the past 20 years. Direct accountability to the political institutions and the public is ensured by defining the performance of public administrations according to their organizational goals and objectives. Local governments are using performance management practices to assess the quality of public services offered. In the United Kingdom, performance management practices at the local level were promoted under the leadership of the central government. However, there cannot be a certain standardization or stability in performance management applications. The Best Value (BV) regime was applied primarily in England and Wales. The system was later applied in Scotland in 2003. In 2002, Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) Programme was introduced. Wales preferred to stay outside of this program. The Wales Programme for Improvement (WPI) has adopted self-assessment and holistic assessment. After 2009, the cost-effectiveness of local services was evaluated through comprehensive area assessments. This practice was abolished after 2010, adopting a governance approach based on the common negotiations of local actors. This study aims to evaluate the performance measurement systems applied in the local area in the United Kingdom.

scholarly journals Decentralization and Its Influence in Determining the Direction of Public Policy as an Effort to Improve Community Welfare

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 111-120
Author(s):  
Rahmat Salam ◽  
Izzatusholekha
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
New Order ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
Study Methods ◽  
Decentralized System ◽  
Indonesian Government

Since the fall of the New Order, the Indonesian government has moved towards a decentralized system of government. The Central Government makes policies that provide the widest possible opportunity for local governments to manage their households in order to improve welfare. This study will present an analysis of the implementation and impact of public policies made by local governments, whether they succeed or fail in their implementation, especially to improve the welfare of the community. This study also describes several alternative ways to solve problems related to policy implementation. This research is qualitative in nature using literature study methods to collect data and analyze it.

scholarly journals Can Top Down Participatory Budgeting Work? The Case of Polish Community Fund

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawid Sześciło ◽  
Bartosz Wilk
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Collaborative Management ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Polish Experience ◽  
Legislative Framework ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Legislative Model

The article addresses the participatory budgeting (PB), which is one of the most recognised governance innovations of recent decades. This global phenomenon represents in practice a shift towards participatory and collaborative management of public resources at the local level. The purpose of this article is to determine when top down approach to PB might be welcomed, taking into account the characteristics of PB schemes all around the world that they emerged as local initiatives, instigated either by civil society groups or local governments. The analysis is based on the description of the PB example as introduced via country-wide legislation, exhaustively regulating PB procedure. The article examines Polish experience in the field of functioning top down approach to PB. It demonstrates that top down PB can effectively work, if it is accompanied with significant incentives and grants, as well as the extensive autonomy and flexibility of local communities. Polish experience suggests that such an initiative might be relatively successful, yet there is a number of conditions that has to be met in order to ensure the dissemination of legislative model of participatory budgeting. The results have practical implications to central government institutions that consider introduction of some legislative framework for participatory budgeting at the local level. The originality of the research is in the analysis of one of successful stories of the PB introduced via country-wide legislation, and determining when this approach can work, also in other countries.

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