| This thesis examines whether and under what conditions the recent decentralization of irrigation management in Turkey can deepen democracy through a comparative study of irrigation management decentralization in two provinces in Turkey: Urfa and Aydin. In Turkey, the state agency, which planned, built, and managed all major irrigation schemes, transferred the duty of water management, fee collection and maintenance to Water User Associations (WUAs) starting in 1993. The democratic processes established by WUAs in Urfa were plagued by allegations of bribery, corruption, embezzlement and service delivery failures; whereas Aydin WUAs have proven to be the very definition of successful decentralization in irrigation management. The hypothesis is that inequalities in access to resources, unequal power structures, low-levels of education and inexperience with civic activism lead to weaker links between decentralization and democratic deepening. Moreover, these same factors increase the likelihood that decentralized organizations will fail to satisfy their users in the provision of efficient and effective services. Hence, I hypothesize that the same factors are responsible for hampering the performance of decentralized institutions. I argue that divergent outcomes in decentralized irrigation management are a result of diverging social, economic and political contextual variables. The study shows that if there are significant inequalities in access to resources and power, decentralization does not promote democratic deepening and does not improve the performance of service delivery. This is especially true if the actors do not have a past of civic activism. |
