Abstract:

The governments establishing the neo-liberal social regimes, which caused a radical change that influenced most of the countries, widely wielded from the state power. Neo-liberalism, in other words, imposed new functions on the states in order to build required social and economic relations. The new functions of the state also influenced the public administration. A transformation process began with the decisions of the Cabinet published on 25th January 1980 which can also be considered as the starting point of the implementation of neoliberal policies in Turkey. During the neo-liberalization process, similar to many other examples, the governments actively used the state power. In this process, in order to establish the neoliberalism, the administrative apparatus was adjusted, re-organized and centralized in the organization of the Prime Ministry. This study aims to analyze the shaping of the centralized administration to direct the neoliberal process in Turkey. In this regard, the study made use of the main sources in the field of public administration which are legislation and regulations, the administration literature, as well as the field of Turkish political history. The first part gives a brief of the literature that analyzes the centralization process within a political frame and contributes to defining the administrative and political centralization within this context. The second part deals with the relations between neoliberalism, the role of the state power in establishing the neoliberal relations, and public administration. The last part focuses on the main means of the centralization process that the Prime Ministry was in the focal point. It analyzes the centralization mechanisms, namely, legislative decrees, extra-budgetary funds, the centralization of the decision-making process for economic policies, and transformation of bureaucratic typologies, in the neo-liberalization process.

Keywords:

Abstract:

The governments establishing the neo-liberal social regimes, which caused a radical change that influenced most of the countries, widely wielded from the state power. Neo-liberalism, in other words, imposed new functions on the states in order to construct required social and economic relations. The new functions of the state also influenced the public administration. A transformation process began with the decisions of the Cabinet published on 25th January 1980 which can also be considered as the starting point of the implementation of neoliberal policies in Turkey. During the neo-liberalization process, similar to many other examples, the governments actively used the state power. In this process, in order to establish the neoliberalism, the administrative apparatus was adjusted, re-organized and centralized in the organization of Prime Ministry. This study aims to analyze the shaping of the centralized administration to direct the neo-liberalization process in Turkey. In this respect, the study made use of the main sources in the field of public administration which are legislation and regulations, the administration literature, as well as the field of Turkish political history. The first part gives a brief of the literature that analyzing the centralization process within a political frame and contributes to defining the administrative and political centralization within this context. The second part deals with the relations between neoliberalism, the role of the state power in establishing the neoliberal relations, and public administration. The last part focuses on the main means of the centralization process that the Prime Ministry was in the focal point. It analyzes the centralization mechanisms, namely, legislative decrees, extra-budgetary funds, the centralization of the decision-making process for economic policies, and transformation of bureaucrat typologies, in the neo-liberalization process.