Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris

Programme Doctorale de CEVIPOF

Doctorat de Sociologie Politique

Local Participatory Democracy

The Local Agenda 21 Project in Turkish Cities

S. Ulas BAYRAKTAR

Thèse dirigée par Mme Nonna MAYER, Directrice de recherche au CNRS-CEVIPOF

Soutenue le 15 Décembre 2006

Jury :

M. Sencer AYATA (Professeur, Universite Technique de Moyen Orient)

M. Vincent HOFFMANN-MARTINOT (Directeur de Recherche au CNRS)

M. Patrick LE GALES (Directeur de recherche CNRS au CEVIPOF)

M. Yves SINTOMER (Professeur de sociologie, l’Université de Paris 8)

Acknowledgements

Towards the end of our MA program at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Mr. Richard Balme had organised a meeting of orientation about the French PhD system and the problems, difficulties and to a lesser extent the opportunities that we should keep in mind when deciding to pursue or not our graduate studies. I had had the impression that he was actually trying to dissuade those who were somehow eager to do so. I remember him still very well warning us –for numerous times- against the solitude that was waiting for us if we were to –despite all his cautions- undertake a PhD research. During these last four years of my PhD research, I recalled for innumerable times his emphasis on the chronicle solitude of the French PhD system. And I permit myself hereby to confirm Mr. Balme: Yes, a PhD research in France corresponds to troublesome years of solitude and to periodical crisis caused by the impression of being totally lost. Consequently, the “acknowledgements” part of a French PhD thesis consists indeed of ‘thanks’ addressed to the oasis that the candidate somehow encountered all along the PhD desert.

But before thanking to my PhD oasis, I would like to express my gratitude to some mirages that I came across during my research, to those whom I had the impression of capable of contributing or facilitating my research by providing certain kinds of data or information, by giving their opinions, critics and suggestions or at least by only listening but who also declined to do so on various pretexts or simply without any expressed reason. Thanks to them, I know henceforth perfectly how not to behave towards young scholars unless I seek discouraging them.

Fortunately, I had the privilege of having Ms Nonna Mayer as my supervisor. I would like to express thus my sincere appreciation and gratitude for her kind help, guidance, support and most importantly encouragement throughout my study without which the study would be never completed.

I would like to also thank to all those who accepted to answer my questions and thus provided the essential elements of the study. In a sense, I have the impression of being merely a translator of their remarks into a foreign language in a scientific manner. I would prefer to cite nominally their names in this section, but it would take too long for a simple acknowledgement part. Yet, I can not resist evoking some names that have more kindly and generously contributed to my fieldworks. As a matter of fact, without the help of Mrs. Sema Madras, Mr. Tahsin Bulut, Mr. Hasan Ozaydin, Mr. Mirza Turgut¹ and Mr. Abdullah Ayan, I might not be able to reach all my interviewees.

I would like to express my gratitude for Mr. Fikret Toksoz and Mr. Sadun Emrealp for not only providing me very precious documents and contacts on LA21 but also accepting to meet with me for several occasions to answer my endless questions about the process. Mr. Yves Sintomer, Mr. Chris Pickvance, Ms Jeanne Hersant and Ms Elise Massicard read some parts and early versions of the study and and let me benefit from their very useful remarks and suggestions. Mr. Sencer Ayata and Mr. Atila Gokturk have very kindly shared their related work with me. Mr. Birol Caymaz let us use a set of ‘data fortune’ on the Turkish associative life. I thank them for their precious contributions.

Ms Tara Hopkins and Mrs Ozgecan Kocak went through different parts of the text to correct my innumerable grammar mistakes. I sincerely appreciate their patience in doing such a painful task. Thank you ‘Fross’ and thank you Ozgecan. Nil Ozcaglar-Toulouse went through the French summary of the research. Thank you Mrs ‘Ethic consumer’…Ayse Yilmaz and Zeynep Atademir transcribed quite a number of interviews. Thank you Ayse and Zeynep.

I would like to thank Mr. Dervis Comez for permitting me to use his aerial photos and VTR Production company for letting me consult to the interviews they realised when filming a documentary on LA21.

The present research is financially supported by the French government (2001-2002 Bourse d’excellence) and of the Turkish government (2002-2006, PhD scholarship) and by Sciences-Po (2003-Crédit de Terrain and 2005-Fonds de Mondialisation). I would like to thank to all the administrative staff concerned with the bureaucratic procedures of these fundings; with their attention, I did not experience any significant problem during all these years. Yet, I would like to thank especially to Ms Marie Rose Pereira, Ms Nadine Dada, Mrs Deniz Ozcalici and Mr Emin Dogruoz for their sincere efforts and help.

I would like to express my particular gratitude and respect in the memory of Mr. Tayfur Ozsen who supported my research with all means and competences that he had as the Doyen of the Faculty and president of the Department of Public Administration at the University of Mersin where I shall pursue my academic career. We lost him very suddenly early in summer 2006 exactly at a time when I was to start working with him and realising some of his projects he had been dreaming for long time.

The research has also witnessed the foundation and the early activities of two different scientific groups. First, GERIT (Groupe d’Etudes et de Recherches Interdisciplinaires sur la Turquie) was founded in 2002-2003 by PhD candidates working on Turkey. Second, JUNIUS (Junior Network of International Urban Studies) was launched in summer 2005 to facilitate the interaction and cooperation among junior researchers who are interested in urban issues. I am grateful to the members of both groups for our fruitful and motivating discussions and activities. I would like to thank especially to Enes, Hakan, Lea and Tommaso among the members of these groups.

Apart from the discussions within these groups, I profited a lot from the feedback and remarks that I received in a number of scientific meetings. Indeed, I had the chance of discussing the earlier versions of the present study at the International Session of Studies on Local Powers and Territories in Contemporary Turkey in June 2004; at the International Sociological Association Research Committee 21 International Conference and the Xth EUROLOC Summer University on Leadership and Local Democracy in July 2005; at the First Bi-annual EURA (European Urban Research Association) Conference: “Cities in city Regions” and the Second Congress on Local Politics in Europe in May 2006 and at the First ECPR Graduate Conference in September 2006. I would like to thank to all those who contributed to my research by remarks, suggestions or simply questions.

And of course, all those friends without whom I would have been totally lost and depressed. Anne-Sophie and Sebastien, Asli and Emre, Aylin and Murat, Caglar, Chantale et Alain, Didem and Kaan, Menent, Nicolas B., Nil, Ozgur A., Ozgur M., Senem and Murat, Serife and Ugur, Umit, Yelda and Akin; I am grateful to you for periodically reminding me that a life still exists beyond the doctoral framework and for abiding patiently all my depressions and caprices. Thank you folks! Thank you for standing by me…

Another group of persons who suffered most from the mental ‘up and downs’ of this study is actually my family who despite all continued to encourage and support not only this research but all what I have done until now with all means they had. Their presence has been the most important privilege that I had. Please let me express my gratitude for my mother Nigar Bayraktar to whom I owe everything I have and know, in a way that she could also read and understand: Teşekkürler Anneciğim, sensiz değil bu tezi, şimdiye kadar başarabildiğim hiçbir şeyi gerçekleştiremezdim. Seni çok seviyorum. I would like to thank very earnestly to the other members of my family, to Serife and Ugur Bayraktar, Zayide, Deniz and Osman Yilmaz, Emine and Nihat Seckiner who have never deprived me from their backing.

A small word to our precious ‘island’ who joined our family and grew up faster than the progress of this research. Thank you Ada, thank you for showing that a single and simple word may easily worth more than hundreds of pages of scientific statements. I hope I have been a better father than I have been a researcher.

And Bediz, my love, wife, friend, colleague… It will be actually ridiculous to thank her. I have the impression of thanking to the co-author of this study. There is not one single line that is not marked by her suggestions, corrections, oppositions and reflections or by the discussions we had together. Apart from contributing so actively to the development of the study, she has been the main victim of my depressions and caprices although she has been also passing through a similar PhD desert until last year; so:

“Thank you, girl. Thank you, girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
with your eyes black as coal
and your long, dark curls²”

Table of contents

List of abbreviations

AKP: Party of Justice and Development (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi)

ANAP : Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi)

BAL-GOC: Association of the Migrants of the Balkans (Balkan Göçmenleri Derneği)

BAOB: Union of Academic Chambers of Bursa (Bursa Akademik Odalar Birligi)

BCCI: Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Bursa Sanayi ve Ticaret Odasi)

BUSIAD: Association of Industrialists and Businessmen of Bursa (Bursa Sanayici ve Isadamlari Dernegi)

CHP : Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi)

DIE: State Institute of Statistics (Devlet Istatistik Enstitusu)

DP: Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti)

DSP: Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti)

GOC-DER: Association for Social Solidarity and Culture of Immigrants (Göçedenler Yardimlasma ve Dayanisma Dernegi)

GUMCET: Associations of the Protection of Natural and Cultural Environment of Southern Marmara (Guney Marmara Dogal ve Kulturel Cevreyi Koruma Dernegi)

ICLEI: International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives

IULA-EMME : International Union of Local Authorities- Section for the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Area

JP : Justice Party (Adalet Partisi)

LA21 : Local Agenda 21 (Yerel Gündem 21)

MCC: Mersin City Council

MESIAD: Association of Industrialists and Businessmen of Mersin (Mersin Sanayici ve Isadamlari Dernegi)

MHP : Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi)

MMB: Metropolitan Municipality of Bursa

MTSO: Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Mersin Ticaret ve Sanayi Odasi)

NSC: National Security Council (Milli Guvenlik Kurulu)

OIZ: Organized Industry Zone (Organize Sanayi Bolgesi)

PKK: Workers’ Party of Kurdistan (Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan)

PUP : Party of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terrakki Firkasi)

SDPP : Social Democrat Populist Party (Sosyal Demokrat Halkci Parti)

TMMOB: Union of Turkish Chambers of Engineers and Architects, -Türk Mühendis ve Mimar Odalar Birliği

TPP : True Path Party (Dogru Yol Partisi)

UNDP : United Nations Development Program

WP : Welfare Party (Refah Partisi)

WSR/C: Ward Service Rooms/Committees (Mahalle Hizmet Odalari/Kurullari)

YTP: Party of New Turkey (Yeni Türkiye Partisi)

INTRODUCTION

“Even if you have a well-defined plan initially,

the road has always its own version for you.

That is what transforms roads to voyages, passengers to voyagers…

This is the mystery of voyages; you can not find your way,

if you do not get lost.”

Ece Temelkuran, Biz Burada Devrim Yapiyoruz Sinyorita

This study was supposed to be a research on Turkish democracy just like the one that Robert Putnam (with Leonardi and Nanetti, 1993) undertook on Italy in their book Making democracy work. The varying democratic effectiveness of the new participatory mechanisms introduced in the framework of the Local Agenda 21 project that was launched in 1997, appeared to provide an adequate empirical source to undertake a similar research. Departing from the regional differences regarding to the democratic functioning of the new political institutions, we had planned to explore the background of some of the democratic deficiencies of the Turkish political system. The idea was thus to reach to national and perhaps theoretical conclusions based on local observations. In short, the research would aim at finding out how to make Turkish democracy work.

Such a political inquiry would be also in harmony with the Turkish political science tradition that prioritises primarily macro analysis on national questions and issues. The main objective of the political research of this tradition is thus to find adequate answers and solutions to nationwide problems or just “to save the State” as summed up by a very popular expression used since the Ottoman period³. The tradition has thus a normative character by trying to find out what is good and bad for the country or how the present problems should be solved.

Consequently, when we initiated our research, we felt confident since our scientific roadmap was on the one hand founded on a contemporary and very popular theoretical approach, namely on the social capital theory and on the other hand in harmony with the Turkish political science tradition. By applying the social capital approach to the Turkish case through the dissimilarities observed within the national Local Agenda 21 project, we would perhaps contribute to the eventual resolution of some of the problems of Turkish democracy.

In fact, just as Temelkuran’s poetical statements suggest, the actual road of our scientific inquiry would eventually be quite different than the initial plan that we had confidently determined. As a matter of fact, the research that is introduced hereby, evolved in a totally different direction. First of all, the social capital approach is no longer the main theoretical guideline of the present research although it remains one of its main hypotheses. Secondly, the problems of Turkish democracy and the reasons of such deficiencies are no longer the main problematic of the study since we are rather convinced that Turkey is too large and too heterogeneous to let researchers reach aggregate conclusions deduced from a limited number of local observations. That is perhaps why local studies in Turkish political science literature appear to be relatively rare. For those who aim at primarily ‘saving the State,’ it is thus normal that the local level does not represent an adequate scientific field.

Yet, we find this indifference to micro-analyses on the local context quite problematical since it deprives the argumented assumptions of a scientific research from having strong empirical bases. As a result, what is defended remains rather normative as long as it is not supported by concrete analytical elements; it is either based on national macro-analysis disregarding the probable dissimilarities that may be encountered within the country or related to foreign experiences as reported in the literature or simply developed as a pure logical and abstract argumentation. They are not thus interested in the possible variations within the country or what actually takes place after the macro-decision⁴. In other words, the normative orientation of Turkish political studies is due to this lack of empirical justification of the defended academic posture.

However, local studies on Turkish cities dispose a potential of scientific value per se simply because they may serve to illustrate and explain what really takes place in the field, how the policies are implemented and which outcomes are produced. In this sense, they represent a very rich resource of empirical elements that can be used for evaluating public policies and political developments. But shadowed by traditional macro political analysis, the local interactions, structure and culture of Turkish cities have been either totally ignored or considered as identical throughout the country. For instance, the hegemonic influence of the centre-periphery approach in the Turkish political science literature brought about the regrouping of the local under a generic label of ‘periphery’ that has been mainly identified with resistance to modernisation efforts of the centre⁵. Yet, it is hard to state that the local has been adequately examined even in this very popular centre-periphery dichotomy since the actual focus of the approach has been mainly on the centre and its initiatives of modernisation.

This status of the local in Turkish political science reminds actually the first phase of French local studies as proposed by Albert Mabileau (1993). According to the author, in this first phase, le local escamoté, the local level, was, to a great extent, avoided or ignored through Marxist or Weberian approaches; the focus of the studies was often on the national scale. Later on, with the decentralisation reforms and the popularisation of civic culture studies, the local appeared to be more present in French literature but as rather the background than the main motif (le local en filigrane). Finally, in the third phase, the delegation of some of the social functions of the State to local governments and the accentuation of democratic discussions in a Tocquevillian perspective brought about the multiplication of studies on the local dimension (le local reconsidéré). Referring to Mabileau’s periodisation of local studies in the French literature, we can easily state that the local is still circumvented in the Turkish political science literature. Yet, as we shall discuss in the related sections, national (de-concentration, decentralisation, delegation reforms etc.) and international (globalisation, enhancement of direct cooperation between cities and regions as well as them and international organisations etc.) developments significantly affect the Turkish localities hence the need for undertaking micro analyses with the objective of following the transformation in different parts of the country.

As a matter of fact, in the last years, we observe a slightly growing interest in micro analysis on Turkish localities. A number of local researches have been concluded on various parts of the country⁶, Istanbul obviously privileged. These studies have three common features that attract our attention. First of all, city does seem to represent a popular scale of research since most of these studies adopt districts of metropolitan areas (Umraniye, Sultanbeyli, Tarlabasi, 1 Mayis, Gazi are all metropolitan districts) as the empirical field. The methodological and practical difficulties may be the reasons for this preference in almost country-sized cities such as Istanbul. Yet, middle sized provincial cities do not attract the attention of urban researchers, neither⁷. Secondly, instead of providing detailed monographic data on these localities, most of these researches focus to rather specific aspects of urban life (poverty, squatter areas, social movements, political elite etc.). Consequently, as in the second phase of Mabileau’s periodisation, the city becomes a more or less discrete background instead of being a research object per se. Finally, neither of these researches has adopted a comparative methodology that would better illustrate the similarities and variations between Turkish localities.

1) The starting point

Due to this relative intactness of the comparative urban studies domain in the Turkish political science literature, we decided to keep our initial methodology that was based on analysing the regional differences within a national project that aimed at introducing new participatory mechanisms at the local level. The project entitled as Local Agenda 21 Project has actually the objective of developing sustainable development plans at the local level. However, since the principle of sustainability necessitates the adoption of participatory techniques during the preparation of plans, the involvement of citizens appeared as one of the main aspect of the process. Yet, as we shall discuss in the related section, the Turkish local governmental system was not specifically designed for facilitating civic participation in decision making thus necessitating the introduction of new mechanisms and practices. Consequently, the project has brought about a local democratisation dynamism through the introduction of new participatory mechanisms such as city councils, working groups and district organisations.

The project was so closely identified with this participatory dynamism that its original environmentalist aspect was significantly shadowed. Nevertheless, it is impossible to state that the democratic outcomes of the project have been similar in all of partner cities. Whereas some of the local practices of the project have been appreciated by even international organisations due to their important democratic impact, in some other cities the introduced mechanisms did not manage to bring about any significant political change if ever they could have been practically implemented. In other words, a very significant dissimilarity regarding to the democratic impact of the project has been observed throughout the country. As a matter of fact, this dissimilarity between some of the partner cities of the project is the point of departure of our research. In other words, instead of developing a research scheme that would ultimately aim at reflecting upon the macro democratic deficiencies of Turkey, we decided rather to focus on regional dissimilarities within a narrower framework of participatory practices.

By founding our research scheme on such a comparative case study, we would also be able to avoid restricting our analysis to a normative perspective. We do not nevertheless claim absolute neutrality throughout the research. As Tarrow (2006) has recently noted, there is a net difference between being neutral and objective. Even if we shall do our best to reflect the objective reality that we have observed during our fieldworks, we do not consider ourselves neither personally nor politically neutral vis-à-vis the objects of the study⁸. Following Bourdieu’s famous definition of sociology as a fighting sport, we also believe in the political connotations of political studies and thus assume the political position we adopt through the study. So to say, the present research is not quite a real betrayal to the Turkish political tradition due to the fact that –perhaps not saving but- the democratic development of the country is still an implicit concern.

2) Conceptual framework and the main problematic of the study

The stated departure of our study has naturally led us to contemporary researches on participatory democracy. Actually, the multiplication of participatory experiences all around the world in the last decade has naturally had its reflections in the political science literature. Studies on such practices have thus become one of the most popular issues of the scholars of our discipline.

These works can be regrouped roughly in three categories. A first group of researches adopts a critical stance arguing that the introduction of participatory experiences does not bring about any significant change in political regimes, if not accentuate the existing political inequalities among specific groups and actors. A second group concentrates mainly on the description of such experiences providing detailed empirical data on their constitution, composition and functioning. Finally, the last group of studies presents these experiences in a prescriptive manner in an effort to illustrate how they represent an adequate instrument to overcome the contemporary crisis of representative democracy as well as its structural deficiencies. According to this last group of studies, the higher the practice climbs up on the ladder of participation (Arnstein, 1967) or of empowerment (Burns, Hambleton and Hogget: 1994), the more democratic impact it brings about.

However, we could not avoid considering this rapid development of the literature on the stated three main lines incomplete since the socioeconomic and political factors that determine the positive or negative impact of such participatory practices seem to be disregarded by most of researchers. Those who adopt a critical stance towards these institutional innovations directly condemn them without considering the possibility of having varying impact on different contexts whereas the prescriptors (such as Pateman, 1970; Barber, 1984; Nylen, 2003 albeit with some cautions; Fung, 2004) defend vigorously the democratisation capacity of participatory practices. The descriptors (Abers, 2000; Bacqué, Rey and Sintomer (eds.), 2005) focus only on the structure and the functioning of the participatory mechanism, thus ignoring the impact of the socioeconomic and political environment on the process⁹. Yet, the same type of participatory mechanism or practice may bring about different democratic impacts depending on the contextual characteristics.

Indeed, due to the general negligence of this context dependency of participatory mechanisms, efforts for better associating citizens to the decision-making processes mainly represent a general mimesis of certain forms of participatory practices. Yet, the actual impact of such democratisation initiatives based merely on ‘importation’ of particular mechanisms has not been alike in most of the cases. Differences in the actual outcomes of the introduced participatory mechanisms may even be observed within national systems. A perfect illustration of this argument would be the Turkish Local Agenda 21 Project in which, as we have stated above, similar mechanisms led to varying political outcomes. Therefore, we ought to acknowledge the context dependency of the eventual democratic impact of participatory mechanisms.

As a matter of fact, the insufficiency of a merely institutional approach has already been underlined by certain authors. For instance, based on the researches conducted by the United Nations, Stiefel and Wolfe (1994) argue that there is no one best way of participatory democracy. Therefore, the introduction of this or that participatory mechanism does not necessarily lead to a significant democratisation of the political system. Similarly, Fung and Wright (2005) state that the success of participatory processes is independent from a simple institutional engineering and therefore must be associated to other factors. Yet, none of these authors propose any clarification on these factors that influence the actual outcome of the participatory mechanisms. In fact, stating the context dependency of these new institutions does not actually take us too far since ‘context’ is a too broad term to mean anything; everything can be put under these contextual factors.

Therefore, we ought to identify more precisely the socioeconomic, cultural or political factors that facilitate or impede the democratic impact of such mechanisms. Indeed, to find out which and how local factors determine the actual outcome of new participatory mechanisms is the main problematic of this study. In other words, the objective of the study is to go beyond the purely institutional perspective that focuses only on the characteristics and functioning of local participatory mechanisms and thus to associate their eventual democratic effectiveness to local socio-political environments.

3) The main hypotheses

Due to such a problematisation of our research and in spite of our reluctances stated above, one can nevertheless find it very similar to Putnam’s approach since our aim is also to identify the determinants of democratic effectiveness. Instead of reflecting upon representative democracy, we rather deal with the success of participatory processes. Yet, there is nonetheless a major difference between the approach that we adopt and that of the author of Making Democracy Work. Unlike Putnam who founds his research on a unique theoretical perspective, we aim at developing a multi-dimensional regard on our problematic. Indeed, Portes (1998: 19-20) criticises Putnam’s methodology based on a single prime determinant on the bases of causing eventually either truism or circularity of arguments.

With the objective of avoiding this methodological trap, we shall thus develop our study on a number of different theoretical perspectives. In other words, there will be no unique major theory that will cover the whole study and to which all arguments and observations are associated. As a result of this methodological preference, the study is not actually founded on a principal hypothesis. Instead, we propose three equally major paths that will be developed in different sections of the present study. Nevertheless, when concluding the research, we shall combine the outcomes of these different paths in order to propose a cohesive response to our initial problematic.

Hypothesis 1. Local political leadership

The role of political leadership in participatory democracy can not be disregarded since, in most of the cases, the introduction of new participatory mechanisms and practices is initiated by political leaders. This leadership paving the way to better association of citizens to political circles can be displayed either by individual political actors (e.g. local executives, grassroots leaders etc.) or by institutional bodies (e.g. political parties, public institutions etc.). In either case, it is the political orientation, the vision and the methodology adopted by these leading figures that determine the actual progress of the participatory process. Depending on the attitudes of political leaders, the experience may never take place or can be simply spoiled for other ends than a democratic change. Therefore, when analysing a particular participatory experience, we ought to examine, in the first place, the role played by the political leaders involved in the process.

As a matter of fact, we recently observe a growing literature on local leadership (e. g. Berg and Rao, 2005; Haus, Heinelt and Stewart, 2005; Getimis, Heinelt and Sweeting , 2006 etc.) due to the fact that local politics has been undergoing a significant change under the influences of globalisation, public management tendencies as well as democratic requirements. We have particularly benefited from Hambleton’s (2002 and 2005) ‘New City Management’ approach that emphasises the role of local leaders in the public service effectiveness as well as -and perhaps more importantly for us- democratic renewal.

For our particular case, since our main focus is on the experiences taking place at the city level, we argue that the attitudes as well as the personal characteristics of the most prominent political figure, namely the mayor, must have been determining on the actual impact of the initiated participatory experience. Hence, our first hypothesis suggests that the political leadership displayed by the mayors of the examined localities represents an essential factor regarding to the democratic effectiveness of the introduced participatory processes.

Hypothesis 2. Social capital

Independent from how or by whom introduced, a participatory experience would represent nothing if the local community is not concerned with and involved in the process. However, citizens’ interest in such bodies can not be taken for granted in all circumstances and the degree of such involvement varies among different societal environments. Furthermore, even in cases where a general tendency of civic involvement is observed, the success of participatory experiences can not be taken for granted because citizens’ massive presence in such practices may not bring about significant democratic impact unless it is accompanied by a culture of collective consciousness and associative engagement. Otherwise, i.e. if participants are motivated by particularistic and egoistic objectives rather than collective interests and concerns, participatory mechanisms may actually provoke the multiplication and accentuation of social conflicts. Consequently, the degree of civic activities and the vitality of associative lives have to be taken into consideration while studying the democratic effectiveness of participatory experiences.

Actually, this dimension is largely based upon Robert Putnam’s (1993, 1995, 2000) social capital approach that emphasises the importance of socio-cultural environment regarding the effective functioning of democratic institutions. Yet, unlike him, we will focus on new participatory mechanisms rather than institutions of representative democracy and try to see whether or not the social capital approach may be useful in explaining the dissimilarities in the democratic outcomes of new participatory mechanisms introduced within the LA21 project. Therefore, in our second hypothesis we shall argue that the nature of the societal environment molded by the local political culture of civic involvement and collective mobilisation determines the actual democratic impact of new participatory mechanisms.

Hypothesis 3. Social structure

It would be too naïve to argue that the presence of an eager leader and an active civic community could suffice in establishing a well-functioning participatory mechanism since political changes can not be understood without considering the impact of the social structure on the process¹⁰. In other words, we ought to indetify the other dominant elements of a social system determining the nature of the process. Particularly, the nature of social relationships among local actors and groups affected by socioeconomic developments may significantly influence such political endeavours.

As a matter of fact, the introduction of a participatory mechanism and more importantly its effective function would potentially bring about a significant change in the political power relations. Therefore, it would be unrealistic to expect the actual power-holders to remain indifferent to the process as their political influence would probably be affected. Therefore, we need to examine the power relations among formal actors, influential interest groups and citizens in order to evaluate how they constrain or enable the introduction and the functioning of a participatory mechanism. For this purpose, we shall more particularly examine how business circles and other private interest organisations influence the democratic effectiveness of new participatory mechanisms.

Such a problematisation of our hypothesis would naturally orient us towards the literature on community power studies that aim at identifying the actual holders of political power in local contexts (e.g. Hunter, 1953; Worms, 1966; Dahl, 1971; Logan and Molotch, 1987 etc.). Developed through different methodologies (formal actor, reputational and decisional analyses) and approaches (political economy, pluralist), the community power studies reached presently to somewhat a synthesis with the urban regime theory mainly identified by Clarence Stone’s (1989, 2001, 2005) works in which local political power is conceptualised as an output of urban coalitions within local population.

Therefore, inspired mainly by Stone’s urban regime, our third hypothesis suggests that the fate of participatory experiences is also determined by whether or not the actual social structure enables the emergence of urban coalitions favouring the participatory process.

4) Research methodology

The present research adopts a comparative methodology in order to test the suggested hypotheses. As Tarrow (1977: 6) indicates, there could be three different techniques of comparison that could be applied in such a study. First, we could have focus on single cases within a framework of a general theory and thus examined separately a number of particular cases in the form of thorough monographs in order to understand the factors that have led to the failure or the success of LA21 project in these contexts. Yet, as we have already underlined there is no unique general theory that covers our discussion that would let us apply this first comparison technique.

Second, the research could have been founded on broad comparisons across a variety of systems. In this way we could have included various independent variables in our study and traced the difference in the observed outcomes. If this technique of comparison were our main methodology, we would have needed to include similar participatory experiences from different countries with varied political regimes. Yet, our research scheme was based on focusing only on the Turkish context and thus did not envisage expanding to other foreign cases.

In fact, the third technique of comparison that Tarrow indicates appears to be the most appropriate model for our research due to the fact that it consists of paired comparisons within a particular type of political system that limits the variations in the intervening variables and that lets us better trace the sources of theoretically interesting differences in outcomes. As we have already indicated above, our empirical field indeed preceded the (re-)determination of our main problematic because our point of departure was the observed dissimilarity of democratic outcomes of the new participatory mechanisms introduced by the Local Agenda 21 Project. Being situated within not only a unique national system but also a common framework of particular objectives and practices this last technique of paired comparisons. our case-studies best.

5) Choice of sites

At the beginning of the research, our objective was to include at least seven cases in order to found our research on an equal distribution of regional settings within Turkey. Yet, very rapidly this initial project proved to be extremely ambitious if not practically unfeasible for one that pursues his research away from the actual field of the study. As a result, we decided to reduce the scope of the research to a more realistic framework by focusing only two cities participating to the LA21 project.

When determining the cities to be examined, we sought to find two sites in which the actual evolution and impact of the LA21 process is meaningfully dissimilar enough to let us have a significant contrast facilitating the comparison of outcomes. In other words, our cities were to be situated at the extreme poles of a presumed scale of democratic impact associated to the participatory mechanisms introduced by the LA21 project. Thus, on the one hand, we ought to designate a city where the new institutions have brought about a significant democratic change in the local political life and on the other hand, we sought to choose a site where the process has been relatively troublesome. Indeed, the cities that we decided to focus on namely Bursa and Mersin, appeared to satisfy this principal criteria of determination.

With a population of 2.1 million, Bursa is Turkey’s fifth largest city, representing a great richness in terms of historical heritage, industrial capacity and agricultural production. Being one of the early capitals of the Ottoman Empire, the city is characterised by a predominant Ottoman heritage, which renders the city very attractive for the tourists. Moreover, various industrial plants (particularly automotive and textile industry) implemented along the very fertile lands of the Plain of Bursa, provides the city with a significant economic richness. Moreover, being the pioneer of Local Agenda 21 initiatives in Turkey, the Metropolitan Municipality of Bursa (MMB) has been considered for some time as an ideal model for the implementation of Local Agenda 21s in Turkey. This reputation related to her success in introducing the new participatory mechanisms in the local context encouraged us to take it as the ‘successful’ example of the Turkish Local Agenda 21 experience.

On the other hand, Mersin, a city of 1.6 million inhabitants at the Mediterranean coast of the country, can be considered as the anti-thesis of Bursa not only with her very short historical past – in 1840 it was only a little coastal village- but also in terms of socioeconomic development. In a total contrast with her past, identified by very rapid and impressive socioeconomic development in 1970s, the city has been passing through a troublesome period for the last two decades. However, our principal motif when juxtaposing Mersin with Bursa is actually her failed attempts of introducing new participatory mechanisms and practices of the LA21 project which the city initiated in 1999. In spite of the formal launching of the project and the introduction of new participatory organs, their actual democratic impact has been quasi negligible, if ever even present.

Apart from being situated actually at opposite poles within the LA21 project regarding to their democratic performance, these cities have represented tremendous practical advantages to us. Indeed, the fact that we have already studied Bursa for our MA thesis rendered us relatively familiar with the city. We have already not only been quite informed about the LA21 process in the city but also disposed to quite a number of local contacts that turned out to be extremely useful when realising the fieldworks of the present research. On the other hand, Mersin was further familiar to us due to the fact that we lived in the city for about a decade where we still have quite a number of relatives and friends who would obviously facilitate the realisation of our fieldwork¹¹. Therefore, it is undeniable that such personal factors have been also influential when choosing Bursa and Mersin as the case-studies of the present research.

6) The fieldwork: The making of the empirical research

The underdevelopment of social studies on Turkish cities that we stated above was valid also for the cities that are examined within this research. The very limited number of studies on Bursa and Mersin led us to found our findings primarily upon our personal fieldworks and to a lesser extent on press archives. For this purpose, we realised two waves of fieldwork during the summers of 2003 and 2004, each lasting for about three weeks in each city. In total, we realised 122 interviews with local actors who can be broadly considered as the local elite. These interviewees were mainly associative activists, political actors, municipal and bureaucratic agents, LA21 staff and volunteers, journalists as well as unionists¹².

Reaching to these actors was actually quite challenging although we had initial contacts in both of the cities. Even obtaining the required contact information for these actors turned out to be extremely difficult. Those who disposed all the contact details of local organisations (prefectures, LA21 secretariats, municipalities) appeared to be extremely reluctant in providing us with this information. For example, it was only towards the end of our fieldwork that we could acquire the full list of the members of the city councils of both cities and even this was possible with the friendship we established with some lower-ranked personnel of the LA21 secretariats. Yet, it was actually too late to make use of these data since we had little time left.

There might be various reasons behind this reluctance; the limited number of actual socio-political fieldworks realised out of Istanbul might be a reason for this reluctance. Indeed, most of our interlocutors seemed to find odd being contacted by a political science student. Another reason might be related to the poor institutionalisation of civil organisations which have been usually identified with certain names rather than a sustainable institutional character. As a result of such personalisation of organisations, the databases of institutional contacts end up comprising wholly personal contact details and in most of the cases portable phone numbers. In such circumstances, it is actually normal that our initial contacts hesitated to share these private contact details with us.

Therefore, we had no other chance to build-up our personal database of related contact persons. For this purpose, we started with interviewing the ones that we already knew and at the end of each interview we asked whom they would advice us to consult and their contact details. In parallel, we started reaching to local journalists and organisations whose contact information was publicly visible (on newspapers, brochures, signboards).

Yet, we soon realised that procuring the contact details of someone did not mean that we could easily meet with him/her. Particularly at the beginning of our initial fieldwork, we had the difficulty of presenting our research subject in a way that would convince them to accept meeting with us. Indeed, we rapidly realised that we avoid using terms like ‘politics’, ‘participatory democracy’ or ‘local governments’ during the first contact on phone. We started thus describing our study simply as a general research on the related city. Moreover, depending on the person we contacted, sometimes we did not mention that the research was actually conducted in France or that we would start working in the University of Mersin after concluding our doctoral research.

The problem of meeting with these local actors was not overcome even if they accepted to meet with us due to the difficulty of scheduling the interview since quite a number of them told us to visit them whenever we could. Yet, after a few unsuccessful trials (not finding them at their offices), we realised the need for specifying the meeting time. Our request for such precision was mostly replied to with general statements such as “in the morning or afternoon”; anything more specific for example on an hour-based agenda, was simply not feasible. As a result, we spent perhaps as much time while waiting for, visiting and re-visiting, calling and re-calling some actors as we spent during the actual interviews. The actual realisation of the interviews was not easy in some cases. Especially in Mersin, we had interviewees who permitted us neither to record the conversation nor take notes; “let’s just chat” they were saying. The scepticism towards us was so strong in some particular cases that one of our interlocutors went even so far asking to see our identity card. It took quite a while for us to understand the reasons of this scepticism in Mersin. Yet, as we started realizing the nature and the scope of the tension present in the city, we figured out that they might have been concerned to be accused or attacked because of their responses to us. Just like all other local actors, we might be indeed a part in the ongoing confrontations. As a matter of fact, in total contradiction to what we have expected, the fact that we had our relatives and friends in the city and that we would start working there after the PhD research, seemed to increase our probability of taking sides.

The interviews that lasted between a quarter of an hour to two hours were realised in an open-ended manner almost always in the form of a free conversation. In most of the cases, the interviews took place in the office of the interviewee. Some of the interlocutors were contacted twice and even three times with the objective of obtaining complementary information and opinion. Press archives represented a second primary source of the empirical research. Apart from following the local press via internet, the archives of certain newspapers were consulted either on internet or in the Turkish National Library in Ankara¹³.

7) The internal structure of the study

This research does not aim at providing a extensive description of Turkey’s socioeconomic and political characteristics. Even if there is indeed a rapid chapter on her political history, those who might hope to have a comprehensive idea on Turkish politics in general would probably be disappointed since this is not a research on, but rather about Turkey. Similarly, the study does not intend to provide a thorough socioeconomic description of the cities examined. Therefore, the thesis is not an area study neither on the national nor on the local level and aims actually to discuss a political question that is not proper to Turkey.

For this purpose, we structured our study on a plan formed as an hourglass illustrating the scope of different chapters of the research as presented by the figure below. Thus, as goes the shape of an hourglass comprised of two bulbs, the thesis is divided into two main parts and its content will move from a very large scope to very specific case in the first part whereas in the second part it will depart from a very narrow focus and enlarge towards a broader perspective. The first part covers rather conceptual and contextual dimensions of the research in order to situate our main question and the hypothesis in a theoretical and empirical framework moving from more general to specific dimensions.

Figure 1. Hourglass formed plan of the study

Therefore, we start in the first chapter presenting the theoretical and political background of the evolution towards a more participatory democracy. After very rapidly summarising the cornerstones of the theory of participatory democracy, we shall discuss how actual political and ideological transformations have paved the way to the popularisation of participatory themes and practices in contemporary politics. In the final section of the chapter, we shall discuss participatory democracy more concretely by evoking concrete mechanisms as well as the political impact and limitations of such experiences.

Our main objective in the second chapter is to provide a basic picture of Turkey’s political history in order to be able to better situate our particular case in a national context that has long been identified for long with its troublesome process of democratisation. As we have already stated, since our intention is not to provide a full picture of Turkey, this chapter should not be read as a comprehensive narration of Turkish political history but rather a rapid overview of the major events. This basic historical narrative is also accompanied by facts about the evolution of Turkish local governmental system due to the fact that our case study is situated at the local level.

The last chapter of the first part focuses directly to a specific case in which we shall gather our empirical findings. Starting with the general framework of LA21 initiatives, we shall report how the project has developed in Turkey and what has been its actual impact in Turkish politics. Finally, we shall describe more concretely what has actually taken place in our respective cities in the framework of this LA21 project and more importantly how dissimilar these experiences have proven to be.

The second part is founded principally upon our empirical findings which are interpreted in the framework of our main hypotheses. Each chapter of this part is thus developed in a particular theoretical perspective based on one of the hypotheses. Therefore, each section opens with a theoretical framework in which the empirical findings are situated further on. This way the study avoids falling in the trap becoming a merely descriptive monograph that lacks a generalisation of the findings in a more abstract manner. The order of the discussion always follows the form of hourglass, starting with the narrowest perspective on the local leaders (chapter 4) enlarging towards the most extensive dimension on the comparison of social structure of our respective cities (chapter 6). In between, we shall develop our second hypothesis based on social capital (chapter 5).

We tried to draw a rapid outline of our PhD voyage that we have been realising for the last four years. As we have remarked, we had an initial roadmap with a definite problem and approach. Yet, the version of the ‘road’ previewed different paths and destinations even if we have stayed in the initial empirical geography. Departed to understand the democratic deficiencies of Turkey, we ended up reflecting upon ‘which and how local factors determine the actual outcome of new participatory mechanisms.’ All through the different stages of the research, we shall try to gather useful elements to develop a response to this main question. But, as Temelkuran’s lines suggest, what we care more is rather what we see and learn along the voyage rather than where we arrive. As a matter of fact, borrowing the lines of another Turkish author/poet our main concern has been “better discovering the labyrinth, rather than untying all the knots and arriving to a plain” (Batur, 2000: 226). So looking back at the past four years, we feel as being a ‘voyager;’ whether or not we became a ‘researcher’ along the way, will be judged by the readers of the study.

First Part - Theory, scene and the case

I - Participatory democracy: Theoretical, ideological and empirical winds of a political change

Since the 1990s, we observe a growing number of participatory experiences throughout the planet. This political evolution identified with greater efforts for associating citizens to politics has developed primarily as a consequence of the general disappointment about the democratic functioning of political institutions and processes. As a matter of fact, all the major aspects of representative democracy seem to suffer from the transformation of citizens’ political attitudes. To put in Hirschmanian terms, people appear more tilted to adopt the option of ‘exit’ from politics. A brief discussion of some of the main dimensions of this civic apathy would reveal the nature of the bottleneck that representative democracy has been going through for at least a decade.