Napoleonic tradition, majoritarianism, and Turkey’s statist policy style

Abstract

Turkey had a relatively stable traditional style of policymaking typical of those in Southern Europe based on Napoleonic administrative traditions. 1980 marks the transition to a period of flux with shifting policy style features representing each decade since then. We identify both the enduring and changing features of these national policy styles over time as well as the main ideational and institutional drivers of continuity and change. We show that the enduring features have been hierarchical, imposing and reactionary, where the government takes the driving seat distributing costs and benefits. Alongside these relatively stable features, the role of bureaucracy changed from one of shaping the policy agenda towards one of implementing an increasingly politicized agenda. The recent styles left increasingly larger room for the involvement of various stakeholders in the policy process, albeit only for consultation purposes. These changing features co-vary with the changing characteristics of the political regime and the shifting nature of the polity in time. They are also increasingly shaped by mechanisms of “governance transfer” in the EU pre-accession process especially in the last two decades.