Turkey's Current Problems and Public Policy

Who is Governed: the People or the State?

Do political powers govern the state or the people ? For some of you, this question may seem pointless. I think there is a confusion of concepts here, including academic literature. If we go in order, for the state to exist, the elements of land, people and sovereignty must be found. But the state is a high-level form of political organization. Although these elements must exist for the state to exist , they are not inherent in the political organization we call the state.

The Oxford Dictionary of Politics defines the state as "a body of political organizations which, in a confined space, in the name of the common good, whose special interest is the organization of sovereignty"(1).  Here, the use of sovereignty is the element that determines the structure of government. In the republican regime, sovereignty is considered to belong to the people. Article 6 of our Constitution In its article, it is stated that "Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the Nation. The Turkish Nation shall exercise its sovereignty by its authorized organs in accordance with the principles laid down by the Constitution. The exercise of sovereignty shall under no circumstances be left to any person, group or class. No person or organ may exercise a State power which does not derive its source from the Constitution. " provision takes place in the following 7, 8 and 9. In the articles, mediating the exercise of sovereignty by the Turkish Nation; legislative, executive and judicial powers are listed. Therefore, it is expected that the executive, which is only one of the means of exercising the sovereignty belonging to the nation, does not fall under the jurisdiction of other powers and does not claim to represent sovereignty alone. So who does the political power, which holds the executive duty and authority, govern? In my opinion, to claim that the political power that uses only a part of the sovereignty in the name of the nation governs the people is nothing but the general acceptance of a wrong conceptualization. What is actually governed is the political organization we call the state, whose main raison d'être is to provide public services to the people.

The administration of the state is the management of the provision of public services, given that the main function of the state is to provide public services. The main task of political power, then, is to manage the provision of public services. It is public policy that determines the principles by which and how the public service will be delivered. The responsibility for the formulation of public policy is the fundamental responsibility of the political power. Political power manages the processes of making public policies in accordance with its political views in every field of public service, and this is its main field of activity. The concept that constitutes the essence of all public activities is the "public good". This concept can also be expressed in different words such as common good, common good. The public interest is the most fundamental principle of law as well as the basis of policy-making processes, which are a public activity. As a result of policy-making processes, it is determined how a public service will be delivered. In other words, a solution to a public problem is produced.  One of the most important actors in the public policy process is the media.

Media in the Public Policy Process

The beginning of the process of public policy is the recognition by the political power of the existence of a public problem. Technically, this is called "determination of the problem"(2). Sometimes the political power does not want to accept the existence of a public problem in line with its political opinion. For example, the preference in our country not to produce solutions by being indifferent to issues such as women's rights and violence against health workers stems from the fact that the political power does not see the problems in this field as problems. At this stage, the pressure of various repressive elements to accept a public problem by putting pressure on the political power is the functioning of a healthy functioning democracy. The most important public duty in the creation and organization of this oppression falls on the media. Because the creation of public opinion, the creation of awareness and  the transformation of this awareness into a tool of oppression are considered to be the most powerful areas of the media.  Therefore, alternative information, which is one of the most important elements of democracy, requires the existence of a media that is strong, independent and has ethical principles. In this respect, it is possible to say that the press performs a public duty.

The media is not based on a one-sided communication structure. Undoubtedly, one of the parties to communication is the state. State-media relations are the  most important element of the state's communication with society, whose  main raison d'être is the provision of public services. The management of the public policy process may require the consideration of  delicate balances in the dynamic structure of society. In order not to disturb these balances, it is expected that the media will be in harmony with the state without violating ethical press principles on issues such as raising awareness about the problem area that is the subject of public policy or preventing the formation of an awareness that may disrupt the process   .

However, it is not a necessity for the media to be in harmony with the state power. The relations between the media and the state must be above a very delicate balance. The main determinant of this delicate balance is the public good. The greatest difference of opinion on this issue is the question of what is in the public interest, or how to determine what is beneficial to the public.  While the media raises awareness of a public problem, it should not cross ethical boundaries and tend to marginalize a particular party. Nevertheless,ethical boundaries can be crossed in this relationship in all countries of the world.  Either the relationship of the media bosses with politics, the funding of the media by the state (openly or covertly), or the lack of awareness of the responsibilities of those who work in the mediacan often cause the boundaries to be crossed.  There are numerous academic studies and printed sources in this field.  But at this stage, we can say that we have created an adequate framework to analyze the current problems. This framework will also be an appropriate tool for my future writings on current problems.

News in the media at once

The images of nudity, which suddenly fell on the country's agenda in the past week, caused great reactions in the society. What struck me was that rather than the moral dimension of the events, there was a succession of events similar to the public agenda at a time. Here it is possible to look at the issue from different angles. It is necessary to evaluate what will be achieved by creating awareness on such an issue in the society. If the formation of this agenda is demanded by the state from the media, it is a matter of putting it before the public as a public problem, and from there a public policy process is initiated to address such problems. At the end of this process, the establishment of new institutional structures may come to the agenda and new legal regulations may be implemented as a policy output. If the pressure factor of the media reflex on this issue is brought to  the agenda with the influence of some of the  non-governmental organizations or community structures that have no legal basis, the reaction of the state gains importance. Because the fact that the political power  has established interest relations with certain structures outside the legal plane may require the use of such indirect ways in the formation of public opinion.

According to another assessment, it is also possible that these news can be seen as bringing a problem that is not a public priority or does not exist in reality to the agenda through the media in order to keep public opinion away from an important public problem that may put pressure on political power. A similar situation may have occurred when images of continuous fights were presented through certain channels in order to create a perception of lack of security in the public opinion in order to make legal arrangements regarding the watchmen   . Here, monitoring the reflexes of the government after the events provides important data. This is again linked to the media's responsibility to inform the public.

Insulting the Participants of the Gezi Protests

The Gezi protest is a mass protest from a sociological point of view, and the broad sections of the population that carried out this action are the citizens of the Republic of Turkey. Understanding the thinking behind the action is imperative for a manager with a responsibility to run the country. No matter in which country in the world, the research of a mass action of this scale is carried out by the people in the leading position themselves, and it is tried to understand what the demands of the masses are and why they persistently continue to act. Because these demands are absolutely public. And public demands on this scale should be a starting point for identifying the problem, which is the first step in the public policy process. However, as I mentioned above, the political power has chosen to ignore such a large-scale public problem. Such political choices are very dangerous approaches that have the potential to create a crisis of legitimacy in the long run.  If a policy process had been initiated as a result of the action and if the process had been run democratically with the participation of all stakeholders, the country would never have experienced a significant part of the social tension it is experiencing today. Therefore, to see this preference as an alternative political approach should be seen as political partisanship, to say the least. However, the incident that brought the Gezi protests back to the country's agenda was the President's Article 104 of the Constitution. Article "The President of the Republic, in his capacity as Head of State, shall represent the Republic of Turkey and the unity of the Turkish Nation; It shall ensure the implementation of the Constitution and the orderly and harmonious functioning of the organs of the State. " despite the fact that he insulted the broad masses of people who participated in the action with adjectives such as "rotten" and "slut".

Article 10 of the Constitution In its article, "Everyone is equal before the law without discrimination on the grounds of language, race, color, sex, political opinion, philosophical belief, religion, sect and the like...  No privilege shall be granted to any person, family, group or class. State organs and administrations are obliged to act in accordance with the principle of equality before the law in all their transactions. " statements. These expressions are also a requirement of the "State of Law" nature in the qualifications enumerated in the second article of the Constitution. However, the President of the Republic can see in himself the right to insult a large section of society despite the Constitution. Another dimension of the picture is that in a survey conducted by Aksoy Research, about thirty-nine percent of the people find the President's discourse "correct". (3) This situation is largely based on what we might call political partisanship.  As I mentioned in my article (4) in which I tried to explain the reasons for this approach, I think that the President preferred such outbursts  in the run-up to the election in order to prevent the meltdown in the electorate by using hate speech among his own masses, marginalizing a certain segment and reducing the permeability among the masses. The results of the aforementioned research show that this choice is not politically wrong. However, it should not be forgotten that such approaches that lead to division in society have the potential to turn into greater negativity. Of course, no one can and should not have the freedom to commit a crime that has a counterpart in the Turkish Penal Code, even if it is the President. Otherwise, the characteristics of the Republic of Turkey specified in the Constitution will remain a legal norm that is not actually applied.

In my next article, I will try to evaluate the latest situation in the economy from the point of view of public policy. I wish you good days

References:

(1) Iain McLean, (1996), Concise Dictionary of Politics, Oxford University Press, New York.

(2) Christopher A.  Simon, Public Policy Preferences and Outcomes, Pearson Longman, New York, (p. 95) 

(3) https://t24.com.tr/haber/aksoy-arastirma-erdogan-in-kullandigi-surtuk-kelimesini-yuzde-39-

https://strasam.org/stratejisiyaset/siyaset-bilimi/siyasette-sanal-gercekligin-insasi-756 (4)