The perception of the success of academicians working in the field of public administration and the factors that lead them to success: The case of state universities in Ankara

This thesis examines the perceptions of academicians regarding the definition(s) of success and especially academicians' success and ways to achieve it among the academicians working in the public administration field of the departments of political science and public administration. For this purpose, first, in-depth interviews including both closed and open-ended questions were conducted with a total of 32 academicians from different levels of academic status in Ankara in six different public universities (Ankara University, Hacettepe University, Middle East Technical University, Gazi University, Yıldırım Beyazıt University and Ankara Sosyal Bilimler University). In addition to the interviews, the memories of eight Turkish social scientists, who are generally accepted to be successful in the field have been examined in order to better understand the perception of success and especially the success of the academicians and ways of achieving success. To this end, memoirs are read so as to compare and contrast the findings of the memoirs to the answers of the interview questions. Findings from both interviews and memories are analyzed together to make some evaluations and suggestions about the success of the academicians and ways of achieving this success.