Europeanization of turkish subnational administrations

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE RESEARCH FIELD AND THE LIMITATIONS

This research has sought to contribute to both empirical and theoretical knowledge guided by research questions derived from the main theoretical frameworks: Europeanization, multi-level governance and domestic politics. The main contributions of this thesis are generally related to the study of Turkish politics and Turkey’s relationship with the EU, but also to previous research that has explored the interplay between EU regional policy and subnational mobilisation across the EU arena. In the extant literature, how the process of Europeanization has shaped subnational politics and promoted the creation of multi-level governance were largely studied within the EU-15 context and later within the new member states. Yet the situation of SNAs from incumbent candidate countries was largely overlooked. Scholars taking Turkey as an empirical case study have usually focused on the policy and polity impacts of Europeanization but neglected the politics dimension. Particularly for the case of municipalities and regional development agencies, there was no systematic and rigorous data about the manner in which they have adapted their habitual methods to exploit the EU opportunities in terms of using EU monies or interacting with the EU institutions. This research attempted to fill this gap by focusing empirically on the situations of Turkish SNAs on EU matters. However, the empirical study of this research not only describes, examines and explains the territorial changes in Turkey because of Europeanization but also presents some new insights on the mobilization of SNAs on the EU arena. In this respect, this research is the first study of its kind and it has generated considerable empirical data that contributes to knowledge about an important potential member state of the EU. More generally, it adds to knowledge about the Europeanization effects of states engaging with the EU pre-accession.

The research employed a combination of different methods that may inform other relevant studies in the literature. More importantly, mix method strategies have not yet been incorporated into the field of Turkish-EU relations. Therefore, taking a new methodological approach, the research conducted a much more comprehensive approach in terms of its methodology and theoretical assessment to examine the formal and informal effects of Europeanization than other existing research has done so far. This is a significant contribution because the research did not only rely upon institutional evidence of Europeanization of Turkish regional policy, such as the creation of regional development agencies, but also upon the perceptions of the actors involved as to changes which were occurring. This does not suggest that the perceptions of respondents, either in the survey or in the interviews, were accurate reflection of reality. However, the interview and survey participants provided original data which enabled a picture to emerge as to the form of Europeanization and multi-level governance that has been taking place in Turkey.

Using mixed methodological strategies and triangulating the qualitative and quantitative data in a systematic way are also essential to identify the limitations of each methodological technique. For instance, while the cross-sectional survey analysis has demonstrated the involvement of several SNAs in the EU multi-level polity, semi-structured interview and case study approaches have offered an in-depth analysis to understand why those SNAs engaged with the EU, what they want from this engagement and under what conditions Europeanization may bring about change in actors’ behaviour. Given the 79.4 per cent participation rate in the survey, the findings from the survey analysis are particularly important regarding the behaviour of Turkish SNAs on the EU matters because it was the first systematic effort to present the overall picture on the topic because of the limited research on this front. Likewise, conducting interviews at three different administrative levels was a crucial attempt in research projects on the EU activities of Turkish SNAs. As a result, this thesis has provided original and primary data that allow for a reasoned assessment of the current situations for the impact of Europeanization on Turkish SNAs.

Another main contribution of the thesis is that the way that it used the ladder metaphor of Peter John (2001) with the subnational mobilisation literature and it combined it with the discussion of Europeanization of SNAs in the EU. Although the ladder model for Europeanization of Governance is a valuable metaphor, this research has contributed new insights into its uses and limitations. First, it is important that the metaphor is used in a time-sensitive manner. This is because the research here indicates that the movement of SNAs on the ladder is not always progressive (i.e., towards greater Europeanization) but at times may be regressive when the activities of SNAs are less Europeanised depending on developments at the national and supranational level. Secondly, SNAs do not always follow the same pattern because they sometimes skip over steps on the ladder. For instance, without applying for EU funding or undertaking organizational changes, they may conduct horizontal or vertical activities in the EU arena. Furthermore, some SNAs may also move sideways within the same stage (e.g., using EU project office for different national and/or international fund calls). Accordingly, drawing insights from the ladder metaphor and developing it further, the research has contributed four stages of mobilisation—growing awareness, organizational changes, horizontal interactions and vertical mobilisation—to the subnational mobilization literature in order to make this framework more useful for other studies (for instance see Table 9.6 Chapter 9).

As for the theoretical discussion, Chapter One and Chapter Two performed two important functions. First, they provided us with a general overview of Europeanization, multi-level governance and domestic politics approaches. Second, these two chapters set out the more specific theoretical and conceptual terrain on which the bottom-up research design was employed (see Chapter 3). One of the major challenges for this research is to link the literature on Europeanization and MLG in the frame of a coherent and valuable analytical framework. Both literatures usually tend to analyze the subject matter in a top-down fashion. In this respect, the research has contributed to the theoretical understanding of our knowledge in two ways. It has first addressed how the impact of Europeanization causes domestic change, with different degrees of change depending on the potential domestic factors in favour or opposed to subnational mobilisation across the EU arena. In this respect, the research has confronted the top-down understanding of Europeanization and MLG approaches as they overestimate the effects of Europeanization on domestic arenas and underestimate the causal effects of domestic variables, which may not only mediate or facilitate change but directly cause or trigger it (e.g., push effect of organizational capacity and leadership). Accordingly, the research has utilized the domestic politics approach enabling us to focus closely on intra-state dynamics. In this way, the research has constructed a bottom-up research design, by selecting domestic intervening variables and treating them as potential independent and intermediating variables.

A bottom-up research design was supported by the models of Europeanization, multi-level governance and domestic politics approaches. Each approach has great merits in pointing out major elements of subnational mobilisation in the EU. But none of them controls for the other potentially important dimensions. Addressing this shortcoming, the research has sought to integrate them in a consistent explanation of SNA access to the EU institutions. Following the bottom-up research design, it is likely to consolidate, and when necessary, to modify our established understanding by integrating these approaches. The bottom-up research design is actor-centred and considers the actors’ situation in its own context. It is not as structural as the top-down research design, which is more dynamic in understanding the variations among the selected actors. Consequently, the bottom-up approach attests to the use of different casual logics and is regarded as a contribution to the extant literature. The research design employed in this research can also inform other studies within the framework of multi-level governance; not necessarily with regard to regional policy but also for other policy areas such as environment and transport.

Secondly, yet closely linked to the first point, the thesis identified the insufficient understanding of top-down Europeanization in general and conditionality in particular in applicant state literature, in relation to the changing behaviour of Turkish SNAs. These are necessary but not adequate to understand all the aspects of Europeanization impact on the subnational level when there is no adaptational pressure or strong membership credibility. More particularly, when there is no explicit model for the chosen subject area and when the national and subnational context rather than the top-down effect of Europeanization is important, employing a bottom-up perspective on Europeanization is also essential. The research therefore argued that Europeanization in Turkey has entered a new phase, which is defined as second generation in terms of mechanisms of Europeanization (i.e. more horizontal and bottom-up). The particular case for this shift can be found in the behaviour of Turkish SNAs. Distinguishing two research generations of Europeanization from each other, the research has sought to illustrate how the second generation of Europeanization is well-equipped to understand changes in the political dynamics by showing bottom-up and voluntary mechanisms. The research has also underlined the importance of temporality through periodization for the different time periods, Europeanization as Democratization, Proto-Europeanization and Alaturka Europeanization. Emphasizing the distinctions between first and second generation Europeanization research in this thesis and conceptualizing a periodization for temporal analysis, the research aimed to offer a new time-sensitive Europeanization framework for other empirical case studies in terms of Turkish-EU relations.

As a final note, however, there are certain limitations that one should acknowledge for future studies. Although some methodological limitations were presented in Chapter 3, it is important to delve further into this point, particularly for future studies. The research utilized a mixed-methods strategy including document analysis, cross-sectional survey, interviews and case studies of three cities. Employing such an eclectic approach in a single research study has a number of advantages because it permits openness to a variety of theoretical perspectives and approaches with no one methodology being seen as superior to all others (Burnham et al., 2008:29). Triangulation also increases the reliability and validity of the research. However, at the same time, there are caveats relating to each method.

First of all, the survey allowed a large amount of responses to be gathered in a cost-effective way. Its 79.4 % participation rate also implies a degree of validity and reliability. This made it easier to generalize findings across similar cases. However, survey analysis requires a high level of expertise and is not suitable for historical analysis (Buckingham & Sanders, 2004:44). Therefore, it was not well suited to carrying out exploratory work. Although the author aimed to include senior staff and experts in the survey, one cannot be certain about the survey participants’ expertise on the subject matter or about the seriousness with which they addressed survey questions. In practice, the statistics and figures derived from the cross-sectional survey did not reveal much about the content and scope of subnational mobilisation, but they did present some valuable descriptive information. To achieve a more in-depth, exploratory analysis, the survey was therefore complemented by semi-structured interviews at three different administrative levels.

The interview method is an effective and widely used research method of collecting information for several types of research questions in order to interrogate a number of assumptions. Yet, the major challenge is to obtain appropriate participants and to access their expertise and knowledge on the subject matter. There were various problems relating to this process during the field work, owing mainly to the limited time spent in each place. Additionally, timing of the fieldwork coincided with a period of low-level EU membership credibility. Therefore, it was sometimes difficult to collaborate in producing retrospective (and prospective) accounts or versions of interviewees’ past (or future) actions, experiences, feelings and thoughts. Some participants were also reticent about their experiences, especially where interviews were recorded. Although the interviewees were reminded that they could express confidential views or information, “off the record” some remained extremely cautious in their answers. This impedes retrieval of reliable information that should enable clear judgments, yet it is somewhat unavoidable given the controversial nature of the themes discussed.

As for the case study, there is an issue of generalizability because the scope of the research includes only three case cities. Given that there are 81 cities in Turkey, one may question the extent to which findings from this research can be applied in the rest of the cities. To overcome the problem of generalizability, the research chose different cities from Turkey to make the comparison possible, while deep differences in political, economic and social conditions within each city increased the likelihood of variation. However, the small N issue remains. In this respect, one could have considered the explanatory survey analysis apart from the descriptive survey analysis in order to test the potential independent and intermediating factors throughout the Large N.

There is also a further restriction due to the temporal scope of the research. This research covers the period from 1999 to 2012 but the fieldwork was completed at the end of 2011. Therefore, some of the developments at Turkey’s borders (e.g. with Syria) had to be excluded from the research because their prominent effects occurred after 2012. There is also another ongoing development between Turkey and the EU with regard to opening Chapter 22 (i.e., Regional Policy and Structural Funds). During the course of writing, this Chapter was frozen so there was no opportunity to consider the effects of this on subnational mobilization (see Chapters 6 and 7). The Syrian crisis is closely related to Turkey’s general foreign-policy orientation and to the behaviour of certain SNAs sharing a border with Syria, whereas the opening of Chapter 22 has a potential effect on the intergovernmental relations in the country. In this respect, the long term effects of the Syria crisis and the Chapter 22 should be taken into account by future studies (discussed below). There is also a limitation deriving from the geographical scale of Turkey, which is as large as Germany and France combined. Therefore, it is difficult -- if not impossible -- to conduct field research over a geographical area encompassing 81 provinces in 26 NUTS II regions for one single PhD thesis. Consequently, these caveats can be highlighted for the future studies regarding the impact of the Europeanization process in Turkish governance in general and territorial relations in particular.