Deeper into charity: the social assistance mechanisms in Turkey and the case of the Greater Municipality of Ankara

Abstract

The main argumentation of this thesis is related with the social assistance mechanisms realized through the municipalities in Turkey. The preliminary emphases that this thesis includes are as follows; these assistance processes offers a discretionary structure and are comprised of patronage relationships. The current social policy system in Turkey coming out of these social assistance mechanisms is not based on constitutional rights based and publicly accountable administration system. It is based on a concept of charity and refers to the benevolence of the individuals and the state authority rather than constitutional citizenship rights of the citizens. That kind of a system composed of discretion and patronage, and not including the constitutional citizenship rights properly, renders the social distrust possible which damages the social solidarity among-the citizens. In this manner, the main methodology of this thesis is to analyze this structure of Turkey's social policy system through the research on the discourse, methodology and the strategy of the social assistance mechanism of the Greater Municipality of Ankara. As a case study, the social assistance mechanism of the Greater Municipality of Ankara demonstrates not only the important role the municipalities play in social assistance mechanisms but also show how patronage and discretion were at play in the distribution of social assistance and their effects to the social solidarity and the social distrust issues. Hence, the main aim of this thesis is to scrutinize the contemporary characteristics of Turkey's social policy system in terms of the concepts of discretion, patronage, social distrust, social solidarity and constitutional citizenship rights based social policy through the social assistance implementations of the Greater Municipality of Ankara.