Europeanization of turkish subnational administrations

9.4. CONCLUSION

This chapter has considered both formal and informal realms of EU governance with a special reference to first and second generation Europeanization. The obvious reason is that Europeanization not only affects the legal and institutional framework within each city, but also has consequences for informal structures in regard to the adaptation of SNAs to the Europeanization process. Yet subnational responses and outcomes to the Europeanization process have revealed a clustered convergence but not clear indications for harmonization. Moreover, empirical findings have supported the idea that changes at subnational level vary city to city and organization to organization. Accordingly, the differential impact of Europeanization is apparent from the evaluation of case study SNAs from the selected cities.

As suggested from the outset, focusing on different subnational contexts in a single state is one of the key methodological strategies to examine variations among SNAs. More importantly, as Jeffrey (2000) suggested, one needs to consider the ‘bottom-up drive’ for examining the intra-state factors that may explain subnational mobilisation, but the latter has received little attention from the MLG approach. Taking the bottom-up perspective, the chapter has focused on regional development agencies and metropolitan municipalities from three different subnational contexts, Samsun, Diyarbakır and Izmir. The choice of comparing SNAs from the selected cities enables us to explore the uneven effects of the Europeanization process in different subnational contexts, and to examine why some SNAs have used the EU to advance their functional territorial interest, whilst others have not.

In comparison with their equivalents in other EU cities (those having a federalized state structure), Turkish SNAs have generally lacked competences because of a long history of statism. To begin with, regionalization and decentralization raise the delicate issue of the Kurdish question in the southeast part of Turkey which has a strong and distinctive ethnic and linguistic identity. Although regional distinctiveness is the significant motivation for a region to mobilize across the EU arena (Marks et al., 1996), it has negative connotations for the case of Diyarbakir. The Metropolitan Municipality of Diyarbakir is highly politicized and thus some of its EU activities have occasionally clashed with national interests. Rather than mobilizing in the EU arena, the city has received a number of EU officials, Parliament and local leaders. Such a state of affairs has made the national authorities more alert when it comes to interplay between local administrations of Diyarbakir and supranational institutions. Although the centre has not obstructed all possible access points, it has extended its gatekeeping during the implementation phase. The visits of Europeans are usually held on an elite level. Therefore, there is no space for low-ranking staff in the municipality to grasp the benefits of Europeanization. This reduces the internalization and absorption of EU norms, practices or ways of doing things within organizational practices. Confined to the political level also does not provide space for the Municipality to learn best practices or create networks with their counterparts in the EU arena.

The chapter has also examined the intermediating effects of intergovernmental relations with regard to partisan contestation. By-passing the state to promote a policy line contrary to Turkey’s position in the EU arena may be politically unwise. Although Ankara has recognized the impossibility of obstructing channels for SNAs attempting to reach the EU level, SNAs or EU institutions do not have a chance to put pressure on central institutions to change their own agenda regarding decentralization or other related issues. In this regard, the new opportunity structures of the EU do not underpin the powers of SNAs vis-à-vis the national government. Furthermore, a cooperative strategy in mobilizing across the EU arena has better pay-off than competition and confrontation. From the case studies, each RDA as well as the metropolitan municipality of Samsun is more successful than other Anatolian cities of a similar size in articulating a set of common interests of their respective city or regions and in bringing them into the national and EU level. This approximates with the ideas of intergovernmentalists rather than supranationalists or MLG scholars. What the intergovernmentalist argues is that SNAs need to rely entirely on their national government if they want to pursue their interests in the EU arena. Such understanding also comes close to the path dependent understanding of historical institutionalism.

The last but vital subnational mediating factor was the pre-existing territorial network. The cities covered by a pre-existing territorial network have gained considerable experience from the application for EU funds and established contacts with their counterparts in the EU. This suggests that the impact of Europeanization on the subnational level is most visible in increased learning; either from their own experiences in the past or from similar experiences of other SNAs. The transmission of experiences derived from time and space is remarkable for two case cities, Samsun and Izmir. As a concrete example, during the creation of RDAs, these pre-existing territorial networks transferred their institutional memory during the creation and institutionalization of their respective regional development agencies. Besides, such experiences have constituted a valuable bottom-up push for these RDAs. The heritage inherited from Yeşilırmak and EGEV has provided a set of institutional as well as inter-personal relations on which SNAs in Samsun and Izmir, respectively, have based their European policy initiatives. It is therefore not a surprise to observe that both RDAs have actively engaged with EU matters and even become members of the EURADA Executive Committee. It is also possible to claim that those cities or regions having pre-existing territorial networks may take more chances for mobilisation across the EU arena, though Diyarbakir is an exception to this because of its political conditions.

The chapter has finally outlined the four stages of subnational mobilisation for each case SNA within three selected cities, in terms of growing awareness and organizational arrangements, albeit to varying degrees, taking place in each SNA. It was also seen that those SNAs have certain access points to the horizontal and vertical channels in the EU multi-level system. This implies that the new opportunity structures have offered possibilities for SNAs to engage with the EU multi-level polity. Yet it also involves the caveat that there is a large variation in the substance, content and timing of their mobilisation across the EU arena. Accordingly, the evidence presented in this chapter suggests a pattern of variation in subnational engagement with EU politics, rather than any neat conclusion in terms of homogeneous Europeanization of SNAs. The chapter therefore argued that subnational factors rather than national and EU level developments shapes the mobilisation (or non-mobilisation) of SNAs towards the EU arena. In this respect, the pace of their adaptation to Europeanization and their readiness to shift towards multi-level modality are largely facilitated by specific organizational capabilities (money, expertise and leadership) and mediated by specific subnational factors (regional distinctiveness, the quality of intergovernmental relationship and the pre-existing territorial network).

Overall, the conclusion that can be drawn from this chapter is that opportunity structures are a necessary but not sufficient condition for subnational mobilization: It should be weighted with the actors’ capacities to exploit the opportunities. More specifically, the pre-existing territorial network accompanied with the favourable organizational capacity and leadership provides a fertile ground for a shift towards the multi-level modality. These conditions are found in Izmir and to some extent in Samsun. Despite having a pre-existing territorial network since 1989 in its vicinity, Diyarbakır has a major problem derived from its regional distinctive character, that is the Kurdish issue. Accordingly, while Izmir and Samsun have shifted towards second generation Europeanization, Diyarbakir is still in the transition process from first to second generation Europeanization.