Public opinion and public policy in Turkey

Abstract

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the state of policy analysis in Turkey. Policy analysis in Turkey, both as an academic inquiry and as a systematic practice in public and other policy-oriented organizations had been quite limited up until the 1990s. The book first examines the evolution of policy analysis in Turkish academia and public organizations followed by an in-depth review of the dominant modes of policy analysis performed by governmental and non-governmental actors. Throughout the chapters a special emphasis is given to structural constraints inhibiting the adoption of policy analytic approaches as well as the facilitating actors and forces such as international organizations. Overall, we challenge the caricatured image of policy making in Turkey as a uniform, strictly top-down hierarchical process that is solely shaped by politics and reveal the more complex decision-making mechanisms that vary significantly among policy-making actors.