Suchergebnisse

Tatar, Volkan (Arel Author) ; 2010 yılında Tunus'ta bir gencin kendisini yakmasıyla başlayan Arap Baharı, toplumsal, politik ve ekonomik bir kriz haline gelerek birçok bölge devletini derinden etkilemiştir. Tunus'ta başlayan ve domino etkisiyle bölge devletlerine yayılan hareket, başlangıçta bölgedeki devletlerin uzun yıllar yönetiminde olan siyasi elitleri tedirgin etmiş, sürecin devamında ise iktidar değişiklikleri meydana getirmiştir. 2011 yılında Arap Baharının etkisine giren ve her geçen gün daha da çatışma bölgesi haline gelen Suriye'den, yaklaşık 4 milyon kişi başka bölgelere göç etmek zorunda kalmıştır. Göç eden kitlenin büyük çoğunluğunun hedefi, coğrafi yakınlığın da etkisiyle Türkiye'dir. Bu sebeple Türkiye, Arap Baharının olumsuzluğunu ve yükünü çeken devletlerin başında gelmektedir. Dış politikada olduğu kadar, iç politikada da tartışma konusu olan Suriyeli mülteciler için, özellikle güneydoğu illerinde sığınma kampları kurulmuştur. Ayrıca Suriyeli mültecilerin, Avrupa devletlerine kaçak geçiş için, Ege Bölgesi'ni kullanmalarından dolayı bu mesele, Türkiye ile Avrupa Birliği'ne üye devletleri de karşı karşıya getirmiştir. Arap Baharı bu kaçak göçlerle birlikte farklı devletlerin ortak ve içinden çıkılması zor sorunu haline gelmiştir. Bu çalışmanın konusu, Arap Baharı sonrasında Türkiye'nin karşı karşıya kaldığı mülteci sorununu farklı açılardan irdelemektir. Bu amaçla nitel veri toplama yöntemi kullanılmış, belge incelenmesi üzerinde durulmuştur. Konuyla ilgili kaynaklar incelenmiş, farklı yayın organlarında yer alan röportaj ve haberlerden de kaynak olarak faydalanılmış, nitel veri analiziyle sonuca ulaşılmaya çalışılmıştır ; The Arab Spring, which was triggered by a young boy's burning himself up in Tunusia, has had an impact on most of the other countries in the same region deeply through turning into a social, political and economic crisis. The movement starting in Tunusia and spreading into the surrounding countries through domino effect, first made the political elitists governing the countries for a long time feel uneasy and then led to governmental changes in the following period. 4 million people had to leave their home country Syria, which had been influenced by the Arab Spring since 2011 and then turned into a battle field gradually day by day. These people had to immigrate to other regions. Due to its being close to the area, Turkey has been in the target of the majority of these immigrants. Owing to this fact, Turkey is one of the major countries which have experienced the negative effects, consequences and the burden of the Arab Spring the most. Refugee camps have been established especially in the Southeast provinces in the country for the Syrian refugees, who have been at the core of the discussion continuously in not only domestic policy but also foreign policy. Apart from that, this issue has created a big conflict between Turkey and the members of European Union since Syrian refugees have been using The Aegean Sea as a passage to enter European countries illegally. With the accompaniment of these illegal migrations, The Arab Spring has turned out to be a very big issue which is difficult to be resolved for a lot of different countries. The subject of this paper looks into the refugee problem Turkey has been facing as a result of the Arab spring in different aspects. With this aim in mind, qualitative data collection method and qualitative data analysis has been used. The resources regarding the subject have been analyzed and the interviews and the news found in various media resources have been utilized as a resource in order to reach conclusions through the qualitative data analysis method

1. Introduction Important political, administrative and economic changes occurred in Turkey and the world in the last 50 years, especially during post-1980 neo-liberal era. Decentralization, rapid urbanization and metropolization processes that emerged by means of these changes have boosted authority, spending and responsibility of local governments. Local governments gradually came to the fore in the process of service delivery. However, especially, allocation of self-income and resources to local governments have not shown a similar level of increase. In this study, this dilemma is analyzed in cases of municipalities in Turkey. The purpose of this study is to reveal the contradiction between the increased burden of duty and income of the municipalities. By this way, it is aimed to provide a scientific basis for policy makers in solving self-income problems. In this context, the situation of the municipalities in Turkey has been analyzed. The case is studied with both theoretical and numerical data and the problem has been clearly demonstrated. 2. Trends of Fiscal Autonomy, Fiscal Decentralization and Decentralization Although a single, universal and unique definition cannot be made, decentralization is generally defined as the transfer/assignment of decision-making responsibility, power and authority of resource creation from higher level administration (central government) to lower levels of administration (regions, local governments and NGOs) (Cheema & Rondinelli, 2007: 1, Leung, 2004: 1, Edquist, 2005: 9, Yuliani, 2004, Hinsz vd., 2006: 2, Eryılmaz, 2002: 225). According to the definition of Litvack ve Seddom (1999: 2) and World Bank, decentralization is the transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to subordinate or quasi-independent government organizations or the private sector (Keskin, 2008: 2). Fiscal decentralization forms the financial aspect of devolution to regional and local administrations. Moreover, European and American writers use terms like "centrallocal (or intergovernmental) financial relations" and "fiscal federalism" in order to refer to fiscal decentralization. The first phase of fiscal decentralization is the division of spending responsibilities and revenue sources between levels of government (national, regional, local etc.). The second phase is the amount of discretion given to regional and local governments to determine their expenditures and revenues (both in aggregate and detail). This discretion gives regional and local governments the ability to determine their budgets by levying taxes and fees and allocating resources (Davey, 2003: 1). The essence of fiscal decentralization is the authority and responsibility of subnational governments to finance their local services to a certain extent (Ebel & Yılmaz, 2002: 34). In other words, fiscal decentralization occurs when higher levels of government cede influence over budgets and financial decisions to lower levels (Sharma, 2008). Decentralization and fiscal decentralization trend that has developed in the framework of thinking that local governments should be strengthened has also created the infrastructure of financial autonomy. Fiscal Autonomy aims to enable local governments to have adequate, healthy and sustainable resources in order to ensure the institutionalization of democracy and effective implementation of their services. In that framework, it is defined as local governments' fulfillment of their duties and responsibilities independently from the center. To achieve this aim, local governments manage/spend assets and resources in line with their laws (in accordance with the interests of the local population). They also make budgets and borrowings (Ulusoy & Akdemir, 2009: 260-265, Yontar & Dağ, 2014: 150, Çelik, 2013: 22). 3. Increased Responsibility of Municipalities as a Result of Urbanization and Metropolization in Turkey The urbanization rate was very slow in the early years of the Republic of Turkey. The population living in rural areas began to migrate to urban areas in the 1950s due to improvements in transportation infrastructure, change of the land ownership regime, mechanization and modernization of agriculture, technological developments, increase in industrialization, and other economic/social changes. In particular, migration to cities increased in line with the population growth. This accelerated the need for better highway networks and settlement areas, and new housing (Tosun, 2015: 202- 203, Şahin, 2013: 79). There have been serious population increases in cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, Adana, Ankara and Bursa. This trend caused significant problems in terms of urban services in these cities (Keleş, 2009: 289). Local governments and especially municipalities took on the most important tasks of on-site analysis of the mentioned problems and solving them with practical - permanent proposals. 4. Comparative Analysis of Revenues and Expenditures of Municipalities in Turkey Municipalities became center-dependent units from financial, political and administrative aspects. It is mainly due to inefficient income structure that is dependent on central transfers, not on self-income. It is clear that this situation causes many negative effects on the functioning of municipalities. However, inadequacy of self-income or dependency needs to be demonstrated with numerical data in order to see the adverse trend in a concrete way. This enables a comparison in an international scale and identification of appropriate sample countries for the planned changes for these comparisons. Furthermore, it becomes possible to analyze financial interdependence among different municipal levels and all municipalities. Through detailed assessments, the dilemma between metropolization and fiscal decentralization in Turkey has been put forward in this study. 5. Basic Financial Problems of Municipalities in Turkey The main financial problems of the municipalities can be listed as lack of sustainable revenue sources, ineffective use of available resources, over-dependence on shares transferred from general budget tax revenues collection, inadequacy of self-income sources (Yüksel, 2004). Because of these financial problems, there are many negative situations faced at the local level. 6. Conclusion There is a trend of urbanization and metropolization in Turkey. 93% of the total population lives within the municipal boundaries. 84% of the population within municipal boundaries is within the borders of the metropolitan municipalities. Metropolitan municipalities have the highest burden of responsibilities. Then comes the provincial municipalities, district and town municipalities. However, amount of incomes is in the opposite order. This situation, prevents municipalities from enjoying the benefits of fiscal autonomy and fiscal decentralization. Instead, they become highly dependent on the central government. To get rid of this dilemma, a three-stage policy must be followed. Firstly, efficiency in spending should be achieved. Secondly, steps should be taken to make the most out of available income sources. Finally, municipalities should be provided with new sources of revenue in order to get rid of the fiscal dilemma. While these steps are being taken, rather than applying a general method, political characteristics and administrative, economic, cultural of Turkey should be taken into consideration and Turkey-specific system should be established.