Reinstitutionalizing Turkey: |the new right experience

Abstract

This thesis tries to shed light on the relationship between the New Right and democracy by focusing on the new institutionalizing dynamics. In addition to the theoretical and historical background of the New Right policies implemented in Turkey after 1980, the role of these policies on the reorganization of the central state apparatus is also taken into account. The case of this thesis, which is the Metropolitan Municipalities, aims to highlight the tendencies explained throughout the thesis in a concrete analysis.At first sight, it seems that the New Right, regarding the reorganization of the state apparatus, tends to destabilize the classic liberal democratic balances of forces by strenghtening the executive power. However, a more detailed analysis would show us that what is strenghtened by the New Right is not the executive power in general but the a group of people consisting of the high-ranks of the economy governance, who gains a considerable level of authority in the decision-making processes by paralyzing the other components of the state apparatus, such as the bureaucratic and adjudicatory mechanisms. Thus, the New Right can be considered a special phase of the process of the centralization of the decision-making mechanisms.The post-1980 Turkey is an excellent example for this tendency, especially with regard to the elimination of the traditional bureaucratic mechanisms and judicial control mechanisms from the decision-making process. However, this tendency should not be considered only with regard to the reorganization of the central state apparatus. These dynamics expanded and the centralization of the decision-making process in a technocratic way became a characteristic that can be met in all levels of the state apparatus. In that sense, the Metropolitan Municipalities are excellent examples.