Distributive Politics and Regional Development: Assessing the Territorial Distribution of Turkey’s Public Investment

摘要: Turkey is often perceived as a country with low bureaucratic capacity and prone to political manipulation ‘pork-barrel’. This article tests whether this the case, by analysing extent which politics, rather than equity efficiency criteria, have determined geographical allocation of public investment across 81 provinces between 2005 2012. The results show that although Turkish government has indeed channelled expenditures reward its core constituencies, socioeconomic factors remained most relevant predictors investment. Moreover, in contrast official regional development policy principles, we uncover concentration areas comparatively higher levels development. We interpret state bureaucracy’s intentional strategy focussing on concentrating resources ‘the better off among need’.