Yerel Yönetimlerde Ölçeği Büyütmenin Siyasi Sonuçları: Avrupa’da Belediye Birleşmeleri Üzerinden Bir İnceleme
Yerel yönetim kurumlarının iki temel işlevi vardır. Yerel kamu hizmetlerini sunmak ve demokratik bir kurum olarak vatandaşları kamu kararlarının oluşması sürecine dahil etmek. Tarih boyunca bu işlevleri yerine getirebilmek için tüm dünyada pek çok yerel yönetim reformu gerçekleştirilmiştir. Reformlardan birisi olan belediye birleşmelerinin bir buçuk asra yakın bir tarihi bulunmaktadır. Bu tarih içinde dünyadaki pek çok ülke belediye birleşmelerine yönelik gönüllü ya da zorunlu politikalar uygulamıştır. Politikaların gerekçesini her zaman ölçeği büyütmek suretiyle maliyetlerde tasarruf beklentisi oluşturmuştur. Ancak yapılan araştırmaların pek çoğu birleştirilen belediyelerde ölçek ekonomisi tezini doğrulamayan sonuçlar üretmiştir. Ölçeğin büyütülmesi maliyetleri daha aşağı çekmediği gibi demokratik katılım üzerinde de negatif etkilerde bulunmaktadır. Birleştirilen belediyelerde seçimlere katılım oranlarındaki düşüş bu durumun açık göstergesidir. Bu çalışma, ölçek ekonomisi tezine geniş yer ayrılmış birleşme gerekçeleri ile başlamakta ve ölçeğin büyütülmesinin, demokratik katılım olgusu üzerindeki azaltıcı etkilerini gösteren farklı Avrupa ülkeleri deneyimlerinden örnekler içermektedir. Çalışmanın amacı, ekonomik etkinlik tezine dayanarak yapılan birleşmelerin vatandaşların demokratik katılım hakları karşısında bir tehdit oluşturan, farklı tercihlere duyarsız ve bunları merkezileştirme amacındaki monolitik bir yaklaşım olduğunu gösterebilmektir. Ülkemizdeki yerel yönetim reformlarında (özellikle büyükşehir reformları) benzer bir yaklaşımın izlerini görebilmek mümkündür. Bu çalışmanın inceleme alanında Türkiye örnekleri bulunmamaktadır. Ancak Avrupa ülkelerindeki uzun yıllara dayanan deneyimlerin Türkiye reformlarının geleceği açısından da ufuk açıcı olacağı düşünülmektedir.
Political Results of Scale Expanding in Local Governments: An Examination over the Municipal Amalgamations in Europe
Local government agencies have two main functions. First carrying out local public services and, second to involve citizens in the process of making public decisions as a democratic institution. During the history, plenty of local government reforms had been done all over the world to fulfill these functions. One of the reforms is Municipal amalgamations and it has a history almost one and a half century. Voluntary or compulsory policies for municipal amalgamations had been implemented by many countries during this period. Increasing the scale for expectation of saving cost was the justification of policies every time. But, many of the researchs result did not validate the thesis of scale economies in the amalgamated municipalities. Increasing the scale doesn’t reduce the costs. In addition to this, it has negative effects on democratic participation. In amalgamated municipalities, the decline of the participation ratio is a clear indicator of this. This tudy starts with justifications of amalgamation, which has a large proportion of scale economies thesis and it contains examples of different European countries’ experiences that demonstrate the reducing effects of scale expansion over the democratic participation phenomenon. The aim of the study is to show that amalgamation, which is based on the economic efficiency thesis is a threat for the rights of citizens’ democratic participation and also to show that amalgamation has insensitive to differences and centralizing them with a monolithic approach. It is possible to see the traces of a similar approach in our countries’ local government reforms (especially metropolitan reforms). Examples of Turkey aren’t included in the scope of this study. However, it is considered that years of experience in European countries has a pave the way for the future reforms in Turkey.
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