The Reflections of New Public Management on Local Government Laws in Turkey

Abstract

By the 1980s onwards, the management of public sector has witnessed a significant transformation and a new paradigm came out with the name of the New Public Management (NPM), as a challenge to the classical public administration. At that framework, Turkey has also felt the impact of that new paradigm at the administrative system. The first objective of the article is examining the emergence of NPM at the global planet. In that context, the key themes, initiatives, and principles of NPM have been put forth in detail. The second objective of the article is searching the emergence of the new paradigm of NPM in Turkey. The third objective is examining the general justifications of four Local Government Laws such as Special Provincial Administration Law No. 5302, Municipality Law No. 5393, Metropolitan Municipality Law No. 5216 and lastly, Law No. 6360 on ‘The Establishment of Fourteen Metropolitan Municipalities and Twenty-seven Districts and Amendments at Certain Law and Decree Laws’. The general justifications of those Laws are analysed with the method of content analysis for the evaluation of NPM approach’s key themes, principles, and components at the reference Laws. Lastly, it is seen that most of the principles of NPM are expressed at the general justifications of that related Laws such as decentralization, performance management, flexibility, effectiveness, efficiency, subsidiarity, participation, service quality, competitive and enterprising government, accountability, and transparency. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4p36