Europeanization of turkish subnational administrations

2.6. CONCLUSION

The debate regarding the issue of subnational mobilisation is closely linked to EU integration theories. As argued in chapter one, the impact of Europeanization has changed the relationship between central and subnational administrations towards the creation of triadic governance including the supranational level. In that regard, the present chapter has outlined the perspectives of integration theories on the role of SNAs in the EU polity. While liberal/intergovernmentalists argue about the strengthening of central governments, supranationalists, on the other hand, claim that the process of EU integration weakens the central level vis-à-vis the subnational level. The chapter was not concerned with the rationalist assumption of zero-sum game in terms of whether states are losers or winners. The focus is on how and the extent to which the process of Europeanization shapes, influences, constrains and provides new opportunities for SNAs.

The reasonably convincing explanation is stated by the proponents of the MLG scholars, as they neither argue for the strengthening of the state vis-à-vis both supranational and subnational levels, nor expect the withering away of the state. What they put forward is the transformation of state within the creation of new emerging Euro-polity. On the jurisdictional level, the new emerging polity has multi-level and multi-actor dimensions across the vertical and horizontal levels, which is described by MLG Type I and MLG Type II. Both types of MLG are also distinguished as ‘region as arena’ and ‘region as actor’. In focusing on the latter, the chapter has argued that the EU structural policy through its principle of partnership has provided new opportunity structures for SNAs in their direct engagement with the supranational institutions.

However, the chapter has entered a caveat, which is the risk of overestimating the EU impact, while undermining the domestic intermediating factors at both national and subnational levels. In other words, the MLG approach has been unable to fully explain why and under what conditions subnational mobilisation occurs. Keeping this caveat in mind, the chapter has set a framework for approaching MLG through the domestic politics lens. This also gives us a chance to determine the potential intermediating variables that play a role for any genuine shift towards the creation of multi-level modality in member (and candidate) states. This outlook supports the second generation Europeanization. Yet more importantly, it also approximates to a bottom-up perspective on Europeanization, which is proposed as a research design of the thesis (see Chapter 3).

To recap, a bottom-up perspective on Europeanization incorporates the relative weight of the rational consideration of opportunity structures and the cultural consideration of learning with the push factors of resource capabilities (organizational capacity and leadership). These show the independent variables of the research. Yet without including the internal dynamics deriving from the national and subnational contexts, one may only grasp a limited understanding of Europeanization in the subnational mobilisation rhetoric. It is therefore important to cover potential intermediating variables both at national and subnational levels. These variables at national level include political and administrative culture and historical legacy, which are important to show the variation for the cross-country analysis. Next to that, the variation among SNAs within the same country also entails a closer inspection to the characteristics of subnational contexts in which SNAs are embedded. In this respect, the potential intermediating variables on a subnational level encompass regional distinctiveness, the quality of intergovernmental relationship and the existing regional networks. Consequently, combining different intermediating variables at the domestic—national and subnational—level and embarking on such a rich dialogue between scholarly contributions represents a valuable opportunity for presenting the research design of the thesis. The next chapter builds on this and explains the research methods of the thesis.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

3.1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the research design and research methods of the thesis. Taking the Europeanization literature as a main explanatory framework and drawing insights from the multi-level governance and the domestic politics approaches, the research seeks to explain the changing territorial politics in Turkey, leading to subnational mobilisation towards the EU arena. The general acceptance in the literature is to draw insights from two distinct ontologies, rationalism and constructivism as the methodological approaches. However, irrespective of which ontological stance is taken, designing research and shaping the strategies for data collection in social science should be based on utmost reliability and validity given a specific research question and theoretical framework. Research questions rather than hypothesis are preferred in this research. This is because qualitative approaches usually entail formulating questions to be explored and developed in the research process, rather than hypotheses to be tested by or against empirical research (Mason, 2002: 19). But also, the concept of research question fits more generally with a wider range of ontological and epistemological positions than do these other terms.

The selection of a research design and data collection should also be consistent with the chosen methodological approaches and techniques. Unlike other disciplines, political science as a function discipline is not associated with a particular research method, and so its practitioners use a wide variety of methods and research strategies (Burnham et al., 2008: 45). Although the theoretical debate surrounding Europeanization deepens the understanding of the inherent challenges of conducting research in this field, attention has not been given to methodological considerations³⁰. Further to the lack of methodological precision, Exadaktylos and Radaelli (2009; 2010) analysed the Europeanization literature and could not find any specific research design. What they observed was that a vast majority of scholarly endeavour prefers implicit traditional top-down research designs. Europeanization is not always a linear process, but rather a circular movement (Dyson & Goetz, 2003; Anderson, 2003; Saurugger, 2005). Because of this circular movement, the distinction between dependent and independent variables, cause of effects versus effects of causes, qualitative and quantitative are not clearly determined (Saurugger, 2005: 292; Exadaktylos & Radaelli, 2009; 2010). This is especially a problem when seeking to specify causal mechanisms or identify the indirect effect of EU in the process of domestic change.

To attain the research aims and answer the main (and sub-) questions, the chapter presents a bottom-up perspective on Europeanization as the research design of the thesis. Such a design makes it possible to approach the research questions from as many angles as possible. Against this backdrop, the chapter illustrates an eclectic research technique utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The chapter is organized in three broad parts. The first part outlines the methods in EU studies, the research design of the thesis and the unit of analysis and conceptual clarifications. The second part explains the methods of the research and then introduces the methodological strategies: document analysis, survey, interviews and case study. The final part provides a conclusion on the chosen research design and methods.