The Search for Centralization in Turkey during the Early Republican Period: Restructuring in the Provincial Administration System

With the establishment of the new Turkish Republic, as the state was organized towards a high degree of centralization, the central government assigned a special task to the provincial organization in providing and strengthening a centralized structure. In fact, the new Turkish republic, which was struggling to survive, saw the Provincial Administration System as the main cause of the administrative problems it faced; and therefore, the state tried to change this system to find appropriate solutions to these problems. In the early years of the establishment of the nation-state, a centralized civil administrative system was seen as a means of homogenization of the society. Thus, in this period, the state abandoned the previous policies that granted some authority to local administration.In this study, which examines the new regulations during the period of the establishment of the new republic from 1923 to 1928- a period that determined the provincial administration system in Turkey today – we will investigate how the state created the current administrative structure.