The Politicisation of a Turkish Provincial Council in the Post-reform Period

Departing from Laswell s definition of politics as who gets what, when and how, we should expect significant transformation in local politics after the reforms of local governments of 2005.. In this article, by making use of empirical data issued from the case of Mersin, we test the hypothesis according to which such a change must be further important with regards to Turkish provincial governments that appear to be the most strengthened local governmental body throughout the reform process The article, after discussing to what extent the local provincial governments actually make use of their recently acquired competencies, attempt to understand, by focusing to different aspects of the recent reform, whether the elected bodies of provincial governments, namely local provincial councils, actually claim their enhanced powers. The paper concludes by stating that there has not been yet radical changes in the political nature of provincial councils that seem to be still influenced by local political dynamics and/or bureaucratic pressures. Therefore, local provincial councils seem to be far from becoming an autonomous and vigorous political power in local politics at least for the case of Mersin.