Street‐level governing: Negotiating the state in urban Turkey. By Elise Massicard , Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 2023. pp. 344. $130.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 9781503628410

• Published date: 01 July 2024
• Author: Niyazi Karabulut
• Date: 01 July 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13846

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Sabina Schnell is Assistant Professor and Senior

Research Associate at the Program for Advancement

of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC),

Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syra-

cuse University. Her research interests include trans-

parency, open government, public values, HRM, and

comparative and international public administration.

She has also worked as an advisor on public sector

reform projects with international organizations and

national governments, including the World Bank.

Email: dsschnel@syr.edu

Accepted: 24 May 2024

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13846

Street-level governing:

Negotiating the state in

urban Turkey

By Elise Massicard, Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press. 2023. pp. 344. $130.00

(hardcover). ISBN: 9781503628410

Niyazi Karabulut

Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Email: karabulutnyz@gmail.com

Although Massicard’s study on Turkey was recently pub-

lished in 2022, it has attracted considerable attention and

captured the interest of scholars in the field (Aykaç, 2023;

Karakaya Polat, 2023). Before this book review, discussions

on Massicard’s book ensued on various social media plat-

forms, scholarly reviews on the book were published in

academic journals, and some other book reviews of it

were published in magazines. However, owing to the

interdisciplinary nature of the book, the ensuing discus-

sions predominantly reflect the perspectives of specific

disciplines. Notably, there is a noticeable absence of the

viewpoint of a public administration scholar in discussing

a topic related directly to the public administration disci-

pline. While the book primarily targets political science

and urban policy fields, its content significantly intersects

with the public administration literature. Particularly, the

study centers on the institution of muhtarlık, a subject in

Turkey that needs rigorous research and remains a topic

of ongoing debate. In this context, this review article aims

to address several pertinent aspects of the book “Street-

Level Governing”as a valuable scholarly resource for

researchers and scholars of public administration/local

government that need to be discussed from a public

administration perspective.

The institution of muhtarlık, the office of muhtars,

occupies a complex yet traditionally significant position in

Turkish public administration. Muhtars, who are the low-

est level elected political position in Turkey as the heads

of neighborhoods and villages, are elected to their posi-

tions but hold a status akin to public officials. Their nonaf-

filiation with a political organization, their status as public

servants, and the official and unofficial scope of their

duties have made their status a subject of debate. How-

ever, the body of research contributing to this academic

debate remains notably limited. In her book, Massicard

offers a novel perspective on the intricate status of muh-

tars, thereby making a significant and noteworthy contri-

bution to the existing literature on this topic.

The content of the book consists of four main parts, in

addition to the introduction and conclusion. The first sec-

tion, titled “A Hybrid Institution Anchored in Local

Society,”comprehensively delves into the historical back-

ground of the muhtarlıkinstitution, covering its legal,

political, and administrative aspects in great detail. Massi-

card adeptly conveys to the reader why the muhtarlık

institution is described as “an incompletely formed insti-

tution”in the first subheading, and she successfully delin-

eates the reasons for characterizing it as “a hybrid

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