Public Value and Pro-Public Politics in Local Governments

Dr. Nebil İlseven writes about the essence and goal of pro-public politics and its relationship with local governments.

İlseven's article is as follows:

As of March 2024, Turkey is preparing for local government elections, set to cross another important milestone in its recent democratic political life. The fact that these elections will take place at a time when the country's foundational values in political, social, economic, and cultural spheres are being recklessly brought into debate makes the election results critical for the country's future. Hot conflicts in our region and large migration movements further heighten the country's sensitivities regarding stability and security. Finally, climate change, natural disasters, and especially the reality of earthquakes—along with the misguided, incomplete, and in many respects insincere policies on this specific issue—are confronting the country with a national survival problem.

For the ordinary citizen, this massive tangle of problems and the complex, vague solution packages proposed in response await interpretation within the flow of daily life. Large segments of the public, struggling to live as honorable citizens of this country without anxiety about the future, in safety and peace, and amidst all kinds of desperation, are trying to see through which mechanisms real solutions will be brought to the real problems they face daily. These remain the fundamental questions to which politics is expected to provide clear, unambiguous answers today without hedging.

The answers to these questions lie in Pro-Public Politics practices, and the field where these practices will find meaning is, as we see in many examples around the world, local government. This is where the greatest importance of the upcoming local government elections lies, alongside all other issues.

When we speak of Pro-Public Politics, it is observed that these practices have been carried out for a long time through the concept of "public interest." However, Pro-Public Politics practices must be based on the concept of "public value." This concept, which has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, is evaluated as "structured practices" with a holistic approach; these practices are defined within the framework of a "process" understanding.

Public Value is formed as a result of a socio-psychological evaluation of "what is done/the facts" by individuals or groups; if what is done/the facts are not accepted as a "value" in the eyes of citizens in terms of their results, what is achieved in the practices remains merely an "output."

At this point, for a result emerging in the public sphere to be defined as "Public Value," 3 conditions must first be met; a) certain services must be provided regularly, and the results of these services must be presented in a measurable, testable, repeatable, and transferable manner; b) the second condition is that these services and practices must be presented within the framework of approaches that establish standards, are conducted with openness and transparency, and observe the principles of accountability; c) continuous, effective, two-way, participatory communication channels must be open and functioning with citizens and end-beneficiaries regarding these processes. This triple management model will create two important results: 1) trust in the Administration, 2) ownership of services and practices on the broadest base of legitimacy.

Based on this model, the essence and goal of Pro-Public Politics is to transcend individual benefits through public value created by the public, thereby achieving a higher level of welfare, security, and peace for the whole of society; it is the fair return to the public of the "result" that emerges in exchange for an operation carried out by authorized public institutions using material and administrative resources belonging to the public.

In this process, local governments are the closest and most directly accessible authorized administrative levels to the citizen, both physically and in terms of awareness and capacity to produce solutions. Furthermore, local governments are administrative units that are close to the resources available in their region and possess technical capabilities. Finally, local governments are a space of freedom and existence where public values find meaning in the areas of accountability, transparency, citizen participation, communication, trust, citizen satisfaction, equality, justice, and effectiveness. In this context, with its social essence and democratic goals, pro-public politics constitutes the most important transformative power of local governments.

Dr. Nebil İLSEVEN, Social Thought Institute

News Source: 12punto