This chapter is conducted according to the descriptive survey model in order to analyze within the framework of the multi-level governance approach the new metropolitan model created and the changes introduced by the Law No 6360 with their positive and negative aspects. Based on the recent related theoretical and empirical literature, the study addresses three issues in a comprehensive and systematic way: concept of multi-level governance, the reflections of the multi-level governance approach in the field of metropolitans in Turkey, the new metropolitan model brought by the Law No 6360 will be analyzed together with all the innovations it has introduced. Changes created by the new metropolitan model (representation and participation, local democracy, administrative structure, fiscal decentralization service provision, etc.) are evaluated along both their positive and negative dimensions.
TopIntroduction
Although encountered even before the 1980s, the concept of “governance” is reintroduced in the context of the structural adjustment policies intended to be implemented by the World Bank in the African countries. Named as “good governance” by the World Bank, this policy is defined as “the administrative and organizational changes to be made by the beneficiary states in line with the public administration principles” in return for the assistances to be provided. According to the definition of the World Bank, governance is interaction of a legitimate power with different segments of the society (World Bank, 1994). It offers a structure which involves participation of different actors in the state government and the inclusion of private sector and capital-based non-governmental organizations in the state’s decision-making and implementation processes. Generalization of the governance concept at also the local level shows parallelism with these developments. It has been revealed by the adoption of the policy of downsizing the state that it is necessary to implement the policy which argues that the cities and local governments should be turned into each component of the “development” strategy. United Nations (UN) introduced the concept of “metropolitan governance” in 1995 and addressed this concept in its HABITAT meetings. Similarly, the concept of “governance” attracts the attention as one of the most important ways of building administrative capacity for the EU. In the European Union, on the other hand, the governance principle was defined in the White Paper on European Governance published in 2001. Here, multi-level governance (MLG) is defined as both a system and a method relating to the relationships between the Union, the states and the local and regional governments (Çiner, 2010a, pp.51-52).
MLG refers to getting in contact of the EU which is a supranational organization, with not only the nation state but also the regional or local governments (which are subnational structures) by bypassing the nation state. Being the reflection of the governance to the spatial organization, MLG broadly means differentiation of the levels where governance approach is applied and definition of the relationships between them. In this scope, MLG includes the relationship between each government level such as neighbourhood, municipality, province, region, nation state and international organization. Targeting a more flexible structure than the classical organization, MLG goes beyond the classical approach related to the deconcentration and decentralization approaches. Regardless of its aim, MLG is regarded a method of transfer of the authority from the nation state (Apan, 2015, pp.311-312). Also named as “modern governance”, this approach has started to be used in time as a means of explaining the local and regional governments of the Western academy. It is witnessed that the governance discussions are made now at the global level and, particularly in the EU concept, within the context of multi-level governance (Akbaş,2010, pp.344-345; Çiner,2010a, p.52; Apan, 2015, pp.311-312).