From decentralization to recentralization – policy reversal and institutional change during the AKP government in Turkey

Abstract

The article analyses Turkey as a unique case in which comprehensive decentralization gave way to a recentralization agenda allowing us to study in detail the link between policy reversals and different institutional forms of recentralization. The article will analyse how institutional layering, the dominance of informal rules and institutional displacement were used to enact recentralization without changing formal decision-making powers assigned to subnational authorities. In institutional layering, the Housing Development Administration became a core actor in a different economic growth strategy which deprived local governments of core competencies. The dominance of informal rules subordinated the newly established regional development agencies and the mayors of metropolitan municipalities to a hierarchical relationship with the central state. Finally, institutional displacement had loomed as a threat in the Kurdish question and was enacted after 2015 with the replacement of elected local governments by appointed governors to serve a repressive coalition with nationalist forces.