Beyond developmentalism: the role of experts and expertise in Turkey’s environmental policy disputes

Abstract

Although perceptions about expertise in the policy process and its legitimacy has changed over time, environmental policy is a contested policy area with a variety of policy disputes between experts who inform competing policy positions. The distinguished position of experts in the policy process faces a new challenge as lay people and a new breed of embedded experts take dominant interest policy positions in a number of policy disputes. In post-truth situations, it is not expertise but the way one articulates a position that matters. Re-centralisation of policy processes and the predominance of particular economic interests in policy processes sideline experts who are supposed to enlighten the process in the name of common good. The continual sidelining of expert opinions, including that of professional chambers and predominance of developmentalist discourses characterize environmental policy processes in Turkey. Experts from a variety of public authorities are bypassed to enable environmentally risky development projects without much deliberation, despite experts’ opposition on the grounds of environmental, ecological, economic and social infeasibility of such projects. Embedded experts have been available for most of the occasions and use of environmental discourses has been a common feature of legitimization process.