Politic culture’s impact on effectiveness of istanbul city councils

Abstract

City councils are governance platforms proposed through a number of European Union accession negotiations as decentralization devices in order to implement policies for benefit of the public. Regulation establishing city councils puts out the objectives of the policy as "development of a city vision and consciousness of citizenship, protection of the city's rights and social order, providing sustainable development, environmental sensitivity, social assistance and solidarity, and implementation of transparency, accountability, public participation, governance and decentralization". This study will evaluate the objectives of regulation by examining Turkey's democratic and political culture and then appraise performance of city councils of thirty-nine districts of the Istanbul province in light of the objectives and requirements of the policy. The article concludes with success and failure stories led by statistical analyzes and proposes some public administration techniques to overcome governance and government problems. This research utilized statistical analysis and quantified social variables and has contributed to the Turkish local government and social sciences literature since it rarely applies quantitative methods.