Administrative capacity in Turkey: An evaluation on provinces

The concept of administrative capacity in the public administration discipline is recently expressed in terms of problem solving and meeting common needs in a rational way. In the public administration literature in recent years, terms such as organizational capacity, state capacity and administrative capacity in organizations have been widely studied in both academic studies and institutional evaluations. It is stated that the existing traditional administrative structures are insufficient in reaching rational results, and rational bureaucratic organizations are not at the desired level in meeting some of the problems and common needs in some societies. At this point, administrative capability or feasibility is considered as an important criterion in the implementation of public policies; it is evaluated whether the current administrative structures perform well in reaching the desired results. In this study, through a detailed analysis of the administrative capacity literature, it is aimed to evaluate Turkish provincial administration in terms of administrative capacity and capacity measurement. Resultbased indicators that are obtained from the secondary data are extracted to form a single component by principal components analysis for an administrative capacity index score. With this cross-sectional study in which 81 provinces are ranked and evaluated according to the administrative capacity index, it is aimed to contribute both theoretically and methodologically to the capacity literature. In the Turkish public administration, determining the administrative capacity index of provinces, based on the existing indicators, is very crucial for public officials on making rational decisions. The actions taken in the development of administrative capacity as a good criterion in the decision-making process will then be more clearly demonstrated in the following implementations. Keywords: Administrative capacity, infrastructural power, capacity building, provincial administrations, principal component, administrative capacity index