Abstract:

Turkey is one of the largest producers of olives and olive oil, maintaining over 190 million trees, with over 450,000 farming families that support the direct livelihoods of approximately two million people.

This heritage-based sector currently faces intense global compliance-driven pressure that is forcing a strategic shift toward circular business models and decarbonization. While the Turkish central government has adopted a sustainability agenda as a strategic priority, a significant “implementation gap” persists between high-level regulation and field-level practice.

This research provides a diagnostic analysis of this governance gap. By integrating Policy Implementation Theories, Institutional Theory, Multi-Level Governance (MLG) frameworks, Resource Dependency Theory and Circular Economy models, the study explores the friction between modern sustainability mandates and traditional farming dynamics.

The research adopts a robust mixed-methods design, drawing on 115 in-depth interviews and 120 surveys conducted with olive farmers, olive oil producers, and key stakeholders.

The initial analysis of the data reveals a profound “Governance Paradox.” Although Turkey maintains a multi-tiered administrative structure, authority remains deconcentrated rather than decentralized. Policy design is the exclusive domain of central ministries, while local tiers function primarily as administrative arms for execution with limited formal autonomy. The research identifies a critical disconnect in the feedback loop between the centre and the field, where the institutional capacity of lower tiers is constrained by structural and resource-based limitations. Consequently, as governance tiers approach the farmer level, the ability to translate central mandates into local reality diminishes, leaving field-level control mechanisms for waste and water management largely underdeveloped.

The paper contributes to the sustainability and governance literature by conceptualising this implementation failure as a structural governance gap rather than a lack of farmer awareness or resources. Building on these insights, the study proposes a policy roadmap aimed at translating high-level sustainability goals into locally executable management actions.

This research contributes to the Public Management track by demonstrating how rigid, top-down unitary systems can be restructured into resilient, networked governance models capable of meeting 21st-century sustainability challenges while preserving intangible cultural heritage.

This research is funded by the British Council International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF) grant for the project “Roots of Resilience: Navigating the Dynamics of Traditional and Modern Olive Farming in Northwestern Turkey.”

The roadmap offers policy-relevant guidance for bridging governance gaps in heritage-based agricultural sectors and supports more effective sustainability implementation among smallholder farming communities.

Please choose your submission type: Developmental Paper

Primary Track: Public Management and Governance

Keywords: Public management;Governance

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Dr Ufuk Cullen