Who is in charge here? Exploring the missing link in the policy-action continuum of Turkish counterterrorism policies against the PKK

Although Turkey has implemented various counterterrorism policies to address the terror campaign led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the problem remains unresolved. The policymakers blame the implementers for failed counterterrorism policies, yet they are responsible for the context in which the implementation occurs. This paradox raises an intriguing question: Who is in charge here, politics or administration? The query requires the thesis to explore ‘the missing link’ between policy and action in the implementation processes of Turkish counterterrorism policies against the PKK.

The implementation stage of policy processes was once ‘the missing link’, in need of scrutiny. Although the implementation literature has explored this missing link across various policies, the implementation stage of counterterrorism policies remains missing. This thesis fills this gap employing a qualitative cases study design accompanied by 30 semi-structured elite interviews.

The thesis’ analytical framework was established on the partial use and combination of the top-down, bottom-up and hybrid approaches to implementation and defiance/desistance and deterrence approaches to counterterrorism. Implementers’ roles and behaviours were linked to policies via implementation paradigms (administrative, political, experimental, and symbolic) derived from Matland’s (1995) ambiguity/conflict model. The evidence-based analysis of the components of the paradigms enabled the research to explore the missing link in the policy-action continuum and shown that politics is more likely to be in charge than administration.

The thesis argues that Turkish counterterrorism policies remain unproductive, and even counterproductive because they are formulated too ambiguously in contested political contexts and carried out by low-quality implementers in conflictual circumstances at the local level. Decision-makers either intentionally leave ambiguities in policies or they lack the capacity to produce sound policies. Thus, conflicting implementers find rooms to employ divergent roles and behaviours at the street level. This prevents precise implementation and turns the implementation into a barrier, resulting in policy failures.