Mehmet Yesilbas

Bilgi toplumuna gecis ve kuresellesme, yeni yuzyilda temel politika stratejilerini belirleyen iki temel fenomendir. Buna paralel olarak iletisim ve enformasyondaki hizli degisim devletin hizmet sunumunun degistirilmesini zorunlu kilmis, geleneksel devlet aygitinin bu buyuk degisimle birlikte vatandaslarin ihtiyac ve beklentilerini karsilamadaki yetersizligi ve bu yuku goguslemedeki basarisizligi genel anlamda devletin rollerinde onemli degisimleri de beraberinde getirmistir. Geleneksel burokratik yapinin yazili ve kâgida dayali patolojik sistemi birim maliyetlerinin artmasinin yani sira kirtasiyeciligin artmasinin da temel etkenlerindendir. Genel yaklasima kosut olarak kamunun cari harcama kalemlerinin azaltilmasi dusuncesi de elektronik devlete gecis icin onemli bir parametre olmustur. Devletteki sozu edilen degisim ve donusum paralelinde elektronik devlet de gundemimize girmeye baslamistir. Bilgi ve iletisim teknolojileri her gecen gun iktisadi ve sosyal yasamin olmazsa olmaz unsu...

Local economic development is a wide ranging concept that has many and varied meanings. This process through which a certain number of institutions and local people mobilize themselves in a given locality in order to create, reinforce and stabilize activities using as best as possible the resources of the region. The promotion of local economic development signals the drive for empowering uniqueness and competitiveness of sub-national levels by building on the comparative advantages and characteristics of localities. Recently, the concept of local economic development becomes more trend discussion in both developed and developing parts of the world. Turkey's economic performance as the one of the most dynamic economies in the world have attracted a lot of attention on global and regional scope. This raises demand for analytical work explaining the factors behind this success story. Due to its successful achievement, Turkey's local development system is praised to be unique in the region and many developing countries see the Turkish experience as source of inspiration for economic, political and administrative development. The government has been taken a major role in the economic development of Turkey, with the coherency in national and sub-national system on their respective levels. Since several years ago, under the impact of the European integration process, Turkey has opted for adoption of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) concept and turned into implementation as a tool for fostering, coordinating and administering various regional economy strategies and efforts. Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), which Turkey has imported from the European experience, were established with objective of becoming active actors in the enhancing socioeconomic structures and with them the development in Turkey towards a new shape. These agencies have been established with the objective to promote potential regional development and reducing regional disparities. In this way, RDAs are considered an example for local economic development promotion in the regions. Turkey as the country who have adopted RDAs, bring the valuable experience for other countries and beyond. Furthermore, many developing countries should learn and procure as much as possible from Turkey in the form of promoting and empowering their regional diversity. Nevertheless, RDAs as a model are being questioned in some of the countries of the European Union (EU) where they originally has been come. Also the experience of Turkish RDAs is questioned as it did not produce the expected result in all areas. The paper seeks to address and investigate the potential of the local economic experience of Turkey, with specific focus on Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and their impact on the economic development. The paper formulated as guidance and give general overview. It build upon the advantage and disadvantage outcomes of RDA experience of Turkey through literature review and SWOT analysis in order to draw best lesson.

This study is to determine whether stress and mobbing are directly related to burnout; and whether burnout adversely affects the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of Turkish territorial state representatives (TSRs). The results established that stress was positively and significantly associated with the burnout of TSRs, while mobbing was positively and significantly related to the burnout. HRQoL was negatively associated with the burnout. The findings showed that propositions of the theoretical frameworks of the study and literature were consistent with one another.

The 20th century was an era of intensive change, leading to unprecedented shifts. The first half of the century witnessed two world wars that gave rise to a huge devastation and turn all balances upside down. Taking lessons from the two devastating wars, the Western world formed the biggest economic and political alliance project, the EU, and the biggest defense alliance, NATO. The classical colonialism mindset, ended by the Second World War, was transformed to the new forms during the cold war period of the bipolar world. As this column previously discussed (the Impact of the Postmodern Condition on the Administrative Transformation of Developing Countries. http://patimes.org/impact-postmodern-condition-administrative-transformation-developing-countries/), several movements and ideologies have emerged from this debate to find explanations to the political dilemmas. Owing to the argument that policy and democracy suffer in developing countries, compounded with the fact that current policy doctrines cannot provide reasonable solutions to the contemporary issues, new strategies have been proposed. In this new period, countries have been categorized as the developed, developing; capitalist- socialist; north-south countries. The demolition of Berlin Wall in 1989 ended the cold war period, leading to several fundamental political transformations in the Eastern bloc related to the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc’s totalitarian regimes and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments.

Improvements in the last quarter of the 20th century toward marketization and the provision of publicly funded services via third parties mandated a transformation in the role of the government agencies. This shift provides for several important techniques of public service delivery for governments. Contracting out is probably one of the most prevalent technique. The conventional government model cannot be effective alone to provide a solution to modern complex problems and does not meet the demands of today’s rapidly changing and complex world. These intricacies and restrictions led to a shift from a government to governance paradigm that is a network-based, flexible and more collaborated system. Governance represents the elimination of strict hierarchies and governing jointly with public and third party actors who may be private, nonprofit or civil society entities.

The United States has felt the impact of climate change. Six climate change-related events in the United States have accounted for about $14 billion in lost lives and health costs. Climate change occurs when the surface of the earth’s environment changes and has the potential to reduce the quality of life on earth. This column defines climate change and explains how it affects human health and health costs. It is based upon the 2011 Union of Concerned Scientists’ report that identifies who is responsible for climate change.

Complex externalities like globalization, economic instability or political conflicts may endanger the capability and efficiency of today’s governments. Public-private partnerships offer an alternative for addressing government’s lack of capacity or to help maximize economies of scale. The private sector provides a tempting alternative to direct government, however many factors should be considered.

Using the partnership of the Disney World and Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) as an example, the aim of this article is to better understand this unique collaboration. The article outlines the characteristics of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), including their fundamental elements and advantages over other traditional governmental delivery mechanisms.  Next, Walt Disney World and RCID’s public private partnership is described from a historical and legal standpoint, with particularly close attention paid to how Walt Disney World’s parent corporation exploited the use of a special district to gain an unprecedented amount of governmental power for a private a corporation.  The article continues with a discussion of the unique features of this partnership and deliberates whether something similar could happen again in the future.

Key words: Public-Private Partnership, Walt Disney World, Reedy Creek Improvement District, Special Purpose District

The study examines one aspect of the development issue of Turkey.
The study further examines central attraction program, which have been intensively used by Turkish governments.

This study examines the centrals for attraction program regarding contracting tool.The Centers of Attraction Program is based on the Growth Pole Theory. The Growth Pole Theory: The theory refers to a point within an area that has a high concentration of highly innovative and technically advanced industries that stimulate economic development in linked businesses and industries.

Complex structure of many public programs was the source of many of the problems causing public programs to fall short of their promise.
Three major problems:
Excessive administrative discretion
Special interest capture
Inefficiency
We are burdened with what they call ‘the wrong kind of governments’ at the present time, industrial era governments ‘with centralized bureaucratic structures, their preoccupation with rules and regulations, and their hierarchical chains of commands (Osborne, Gaebler)
Thus, it requires a revolution.
The hearth of the revolution has been fundamental transformation not just in the scope and scale of government action, but also in its basic forms –in the tools of public action, the instruments or means (tools) used to address public problems.

Research Questions:
1. What are the distinguishing features of the
partnership between Disney World and Reedy Creek
Improvement District?
Ø Methods:
Ø Qualitative Analysis: A Case study
Ø Review of relevant, and relatively scant, academic
literature on the subject as well as newspaper articles and
legal documents.
Ø Semi-structure interviews were conducted with an expert
from the field, familiar with this partnership, as well as
representatives of neighboring counties who had
interaction with the RCID and Walt Disney World.
Ø A total of four in-depth interviews were conducted.

Job-related stress occurs as one of the most serious issues in modern era in developed nations.  It has direct and negative effects on employees’ productivity and it may have negative impacts on employees’ health. One of the potential results of prolonged stressors at work place is burnout and this response may lead to physical, emotional, and psychological exhaustion  that can occur at  both individual and organizational levels. Burnout is a job related threat that provokes social stress and can directly affect an individual’s health. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is commonly used to measure an individual’s overall/global health and quality of life. Another serious issue, mobbing, usually leads to some individual and organizational complications. It affects the organizational commitment, motivation and efficiency of staff, job satisfaction of employee, and may lead to potential burnout of the employees. The primary objective of this study is to determine whether stress and mobbing are directly related to burnout; and, whether burnout leads to an adverse effect on the HRQoL of Turkish territorial state representatives (TSRs). This study examines four specific research questions:  1) Whether and to what extent do the levels of perceived job related stress and mobbing affect the level of perceived burnout syndrome of TSRs? 2) Whether and to what extent is the level of perceived burnout syndrome associated with HRQoL of TSRs?  3) To what extent does the level of perceived burnout mediate the effects of job-related stress on HRQoL of TSRs?  4) What are the mediating factors between job burnout and HRQoL? This study is expected to offer valuable and insightful information about the role of job burnout factors influencing the variability in TSRs’ HRQoL.
The study utilized two statistical analyses, which were descriptive analysis and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) which allows for the assessment of the relationships specified in the hypotheses and the SEM was used to validate the theoretically driven model.
The findings of the study supported the hypotheses of the study, which asserted that there were correlations between job-related stress and burnout, mobbing and burnout, and burnout and HRQoL. The CFA results established that job-related stress was positively and significantly associated with the burnout of TSRs, while perceived mobbing was positively and significantly related to the burnout of TSRs.  Moreover, perceived HRQoL of TSRs was negatively associated with the burnout of TSRs. Further, the findings indicated that the relationship between job-related stress and burnout and the relationship between burnout and HRQoL of TSRs were statistically significant. Thus the variable had a positive effect on burnout and a negative effect on the HRQoL of TSRs. In summary, the findings of the study showed that results and propositions of the theoretical frameworks of the study and literature were consistent with one another.

Kamu yönetiminde ortaya çıkan yeni model ve yaklaşımlar, yönetim alanında etkililik ve verimliliği esas alan bir temeli esas almıştır. Hızlı karar alma ve sorunlara etkili çözümler bulma, bu yaklaşımların temel fonksiyonlarıdır. Kalkınma sorunuyla mücadele ve kalıcı politika geliştirebilmesi için merkezi yapılar dışında örgütlenmiş birimlere daha çok görev, yetki ve sorumluluk verilmesi, merkezi yönetim ve yerel yönetimler arasındaki yetki-kaynak dağılımının geleneksel yapısının değiştirilmesi gereksinimini de ortaya çıkarmıştır.
Özellikle demokratik kültürün yaygınlaşmasına koşut olarak, refah düzeyindeki artış, nüfus vb. alanlardaki değişimler, gereksinim ve beklentilerin farklılaşmasına ve artmasına neden olmuştur. Bu durumun doğal sonucu olarak da alternatif yönetimler, yerel ortak gereksinimleri karşılayabilmek için ortaya çıkan yeni yapılar olarak dikkat çekmektedir ki Bölge Kalkınma Ajansları da (BKA) böyle bir ihtiyacın giderilmesi için ortaya çıkmış kurumlardandır.
Tez, yukarıda verilen genel çerçeve ışığında ajansların Türkiye’nin kalkınma perspektifi itibariyle alternatif bir kalkınma modeli olup olmadığına ilişkin olarak mülki idare amirleri ve ajans çalışanlarının algılarını ölçmeyi amaçlamaktadır.

The new models and approaches emerging within the framework of public administration are based upon a ground focusing on effectiveness and efficiency. The main functions of such approaches include quick decision-making and effective troubleshooting.  Within this context, the necessity to struggle with the problem of development and develop enduring policies, as well as to grant units organized aside from the central administration  with more competence a responsibility and to change the traditional structure of competence-resource range between the central and local administrations has also emerged.
Especially, in line with proliferation of democratic culture, changes in the field of increase in the level of welfare and of population etc. have resulted in the difference and increase in terms of necessities and expectancies. As a natural consequence of this, new structures set forth in order to fulfill the local common necessities have become so noteworthy that Regional Development Agencies (RDA) have developed as the institutions targeting to satisfy such a need.
This thesis makes a field research as to whether the Regional Development Agencies being established recently in the light of the above-mentioned common framework suggest an alternative development model in terms of Turkey’s development perspective and examines the RDA in this direction.

Bu çalışma, yerel yönetim birliklerinin en yaygını olan köylere hizmet götürme birliklerini ele almaktadır. Adı geçen birlikler tarafından 2005 yılından bu yana kırsal altyapı çalışmalarına ilişkin yürütülmekte olan KÖYDES projesi de çalışmanın bir diğer temel konusunu oluşturmaktadır. Ülkemiz kırsal kalkınma deneyimleri, Cumhuriyetten günümüze kadar yapılmış kırsal kalkınma çalışmaları ve özellikle kalkınma planlarında kırsal kalkınma yaklaşımları ele alınmıştır. Bu deneyimler paralelinde KÖYDES projesi ve köylere hizmet götürme birlikleri ele alınarak kırsal altyapı çalışmalarına ilişkin model olabilme potansiyeli tartışılmıştır. 5355 sayılı yasal düzenlemeden sonra birliklerde, harcamaların kamusal alım-satım prosedürlerinin dışına çıkarılması, ihale mevzuatı ve Sayıştay denetiminin by-pass edilmesi, YPK kararları ile birlik amaçlarına aykırı düzenlemelerin getirilmesi, il genel meclisi üyelerinin sisteme entegre edilmesi gibi önemli amaçsal sapmalar meydana gelmiştir. KÖYDES projesi, sayısal veriler açısından başarılı gibi gözükse de kamuoyunda ve literatürde siyasallaşma çabaları ve rant sağlama iddiaları sürekli dillendirilmiştir. Özellikle birliklerle hiçbir şekilde organik bağı olmayana il genel meclisi üyelerinin sisteme entegre edilerek, karar organlarının bir parçası haline getirilmesi, dolayısıyla ihale komisyon üyeleri olmaları, birliklerin satın alma prosedürlerinin ihale mevzuatı dışına çıkarıldığı da dikkate alındığında önemli bir sapma olarak dikkat çekmektedir. Siyasal kişiliklerin birlik karar organlarına dâhil edilmesinin yanı sıra, mülki idare amirlerinin doğal başkan olarak atanmaları gibi hususlar, birliklerin demokratik niteliğini azaltmış ve bu kuruluşları yerel özerklikten uzaklaştırmıştır. Yapılan alan araştırmasında da katılımcıların, bu konulara ilişin yaklaşımlarında önemli farklılıkların olduğu görülmüştür.
A STUDY ON CONSORTIUMS FOR PROVIDING SERVICES TO THE VILLAGES AND THE KÖYDES PROJECT
In this study, consortiums for providing services to the villages, being the most widespread local administration units, as well as the KÖYDES Project, which has been implemented by the aforementioned consortiums for the rural infrastructure since 2005, have been examined. This study scrutinizes the development experience of Turkey, rural development praxis since the establishment of the Republic and the rural development approaches in the development plans. Whether the KÖYDES Project and Consortiums for Providing Services for the Villages may compose a model for the rural infrastructure practices has also been discussed.  After adoption of Law Number 5355, vital divergence from the purpose of the consortiums occurred, such that the expenditures of the consortiums have been taken out of the public procurement procedures, the tender legislations and audit of the Court of Auditors have been by-passed, regulations which are contradictory to the objectives of the consortiums have been adopted by the High Council of Planning (YPK). Although the KÖYDES Project appears to be successful quantity-wise, in literature and in public opinion, it has been constantly cited that the project was subjected to attempts for high politicization and for political gains. Particularly, the fact that the members of the Provincial General Assembly, with no organic link with the consortiums, have been integrated into the system and that they have been part of the decision-making bodies such as the tender commissions-, poses as a striking divergence, especially in the context of the fact that the procurement procedures of the consortiums have been taken out of the tender legislation. In addition to the inclusion of the political people to the decision-making bodies of the consortiums, the matters such as the appointment of the public administration managers as the by-default president have diminished the democratic attribute of the consortiums and diverged these institutions from the local autonomy. During the field work conducted, crucial differences among participants were observed to exist in terms of their approaches to this topic.