Weakening the Strong Mayor: Partisan Division and Presidential Intervention in Istanbul

• Author: İhsan İkizer
• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X211045356
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Research Articles

Weakening the Strong

Mayor: Partisan Division

and Presidential Intervention

in Istanbul

I

̇

hsan I

̇

kizer

Abstract

Istanbul, the leading city of Turkey, is a good case for analyzing the conflictual relations of the mayor

with the city council and the central government. Istanbul had been governed by the mayors from

the ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) and its prede-

cessor parties since 1994. In the local elections held in March 2019, which was repeated only for

Istanbul after two months with a highly suspicious decision by the Supreme Election Board, the

AKP lost this city. Ekrem I

̇

mamog

̆lu, the mayor of Istanbul, has harsh relations with the city council,

which is dominated by the AKP and its alliance party, the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi

Hareket Partisi; MHP). What exacerbates this situation is the partisan intervention of the increasingly

authoritarian central government that weakens the mayor’s position. The mayor tries to counter-

balance the power of the city council and central government agencies through livestreaming the

city council meetings and attracting civic engagement on his side. This article is expected to contrib-

ute to the literature on mayoral leadership, partisan constraints to mayoral powers as well as the

mayor’s strategies against the authoritarian intervention of the central governments. Mayor

I

̇

mamog

̆lu’s strategies and measures adopted for overcoming the effor ts of blocking his agenda by

both the council and central government might inspire other mayors experiencing similar partisan

constraints.

Keywords

weak mayor form, strong mayor form, multilevel conflict, partisanship, transparency of city council,

local governments, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Ekrem I

̇

mamog

̆lu, AKP

Introduction

Mayoral leadership in Istanbul, the economic,

industrial, financial, and cultural capital of

Turkey, has been an indispensable item of

debate among politicians and academics since

the recent local election in Turkey on March

31, 2019, which was repeated only for Istanbul

on June 23 in the same year. The ruling party,

the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve

Kalkınma Partisi;AKP),whichhasbeenin

power in Turkey since 2002 and in Istanbul

Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences,

Nişantaşı University, Istanbul, Turkey

Corresponding Author:

I

̇

hsan I

̇

kizer,Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social

Sciences, Nişantaşı University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Email: ihsan.ikizer@nisantasi.edu.tr

Research Article

State and Local Government Review

2022, Vol. 54(1) 32-51

© The Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0160323X211045356

journals.sagepub.com/home/slg

since 1994 under the names of different parties,

lost the election in Istanbul and the capital city

of Ankara. The current mayor of Istanbul,

Ekrem I

̇mamog

̆lu, candidate of the main opposi-

tion party, the Republican People’sParty

(Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi; CHP), has reached a

land sliding victory against his rival Binali

Yıldırım from the AKP, who was the final

Prime Minister of Turkey between 2016 and

2018. This victory not only terminated the

power of the ruling party in Istanbul but also

has raised hopes among the opponents of the

AKP, which has been the winner of all local

and national elections as well as referendums

since 2002 (Koru 2019). Despite this victory,

the AKP was able to win the majority of the

seats together with its alliance parties in the

City Council of Istanbul, which has weakened

the position of the mayor.

1

In Turkey, the form of “strong mayor-weak

council”has been in effect for decades. Except

for a few cases, the party of the mayor and the

party holding the majority of the city council

have been the same, which meant a complete

political uniformity and harmony between these

two elected actors. I

̇mamog

̆lu has experienced,

and it seems that he will keep on experiencing

several drawbacks due to limited support to him

from the city council, where his party and the alli-

ance parties do not constitute the majority. What

is more, he challenges the partisan intervention of

the increasingly authoritarian central government

that intends to strengthen the position of city

councils and government agencies in cities vis a

vis mayors from the opposition parties.

This article will start with the literature on the

mayor-council form and the relations between

mayors and councils as well as loyalty to party

groups in the council. It explores the horizontal

and vertical conflicting relations between a

mayor and municipal council as well as central

government based on political party affiliation

and partisanship, using the city of Istanbul as

the in-depth case study. Some of the intervention-

ist and partisan steps takenby the central govern-

ment after the “undesired”local election results

for the ruling party, and the strong council’s

efforts to block the mayor’s agenda in Istanbul

will be analyzed. The illiberal and undemocratic

political climate in Turkey, which does not toler-

ate opposition at any level, will also be analyzed.

This article might contribute to the literature on

mayoral powers, partisan constraints to mayoral

powers as well as the mayor’s strategies against

the authoritarian intervention of the central gov-

ernments. The strategies and measures adopted

by the Mayor of Istanbul for overcoming the

efforts of blocking his agenda by both the

council and central government might inspire

other city mayors experiencing similar partisan

constraints all around the world.

Theoretical Framework

There are two main types of local governments:

council-manager and mayor-council.

2

Local

governments, depending on the population of

cities, administrative traditions in their coun-

tries, and of course constitutions, have one of

these forms. In council-manager form, which

is compared to the parliamentary system of gov-

ernment, a city manager who is hired and fired

by the city council is completely outside the

political realm and acts like the chief executive

officer of a private company. In this system,

mayors are nonexecutive and have only ceremo-

nial duties although they may be directly and

popularly elected (Svara and Watson 2010).

Elected city councils are responsible for policy-

making, while city managers are responsible for

policy implementation, from day-to-day ser-

vices to infrastructure construction

(Golembiewski and Gabris 2020). In other

words, “elected officials are overseers, and the

city manager and the staff are implementers”

although city managers can assume policy lead-

ership (Demir and Reddick 2012; Svara 2000;

Zhang and Feiock 2010; Zhang 2014). This

form can be compared to the parliamentary

system, in which the legislative body totally

controls the executive branch, which is repre-

sented by city managers (Svara and Watson

2010).

On the other hand, the mayor-council form,

which is the most common form in the USA

with around 60 percent, followedby the council-

manager form with around 33 percent, has two

subdivisions: strong mayor and weak mayor

I

̇

kizer 33