The Development of e-Municipalism in Türkiye

Abstract

In the first half of the 1980s, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom took control of state administration, initiating a process of change and development. In the second half of the 1980s, the World Bank highlighted the term "governance" as a new governance model in state-society relations, incorporating concepts such as efficiency, productivity, participation, and transparency. The transformation that began in the West eventually had an impact on countries worldwide, collectively referred to in the literature as "New Public Management." One of the key supporters of the transformation in public administration during this period was the development of technology. This phenomenon is readily observable through the example of Türkiye. Since the establishment of the first Internet connection in 1993, Türkiye has quickly adapted to this medium. Research by international organizations indicates that the rate of Internet adoption in Türkiye is 82%, and the daily time spent online by users (8 hours) exceeds the world average. Another study's data, as of 2022, places Türkiye at the top of the list of countries that use mobile banking the most. While it is true that the Turkish population primarily uses the Internet for socializing and entertainment, it is undeniable that many official tasks and transactions are also conducted through this channel. When the aforementioned topics are brought together, they lead us to a question that needs investigation: "Where does Türkiye stand in the execution of public tasks and transactions over the Internet?" The "e-Government" website (www.turkiye.gov.tr), established in 2008, has evolved over time to offer thousands of transactions from hundreds of public institutions to Turkish citizens online, consistently ranking among the most visited sites in Türkiye according to Google data. This data alone serves as a concise answer to the previously posed question. However, a particular emphasis of the study is to conduct research through local government units, specifically municipalities, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the services offered by municipalities online and the level of adoption by society based on existing data. In this regard, the "e-Municipality" application (belediye.gov.tr), launched in 2017 by the Ministry of Interior Affairs and the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change, aiming to bring together municipalities and municipal transactions on a common platform, will be examined in detail.