Analysis of the Boomerang Effect in the Implementation of the PFMCL Policy in Turkey using a Deliberative Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69812/jgs.v3i2.247Abstract
The Public Finance Management and Control Law (PFMCL) constitutes a central component of Türkiye’s public financial management reform, yet the relationship between its formal reform architecture and its implementation outcomes remains contested. This article reassesses the “boomerang effect” as an analytical concept for explaining situations in which reform instruments can become self-undermining rather than merely incomplete. Using an integrative qualitative document review, the study synthesizes 40 academic and institutional sources published between 2016 and 2025 and examines the case through four analytical dimensions: policy-objective consistency, institutionalization of reform instruments, transparency and accountability, and deliberative feedback. The evidence indicates a mixed reform trajectory. Türkiye has developed a broad legal and administrative framework for performance-oriented budgeting, internal control, external audit, and fiscal reporting, while recurrent implementation gaps remain in coordination, the follow-up of audit recommendations, the linkage between planning and budgeting, and formal opportunities for public participation. The Open Budget Survey 2023, for example, records stronger information availability than public participation, while recent European Commission assessments continue to identify implementation and coordination challenges in public financial management and internal control. The article therefore interprets the boomerang effect not as proof of a single political intervention or a wholesale collapse of the PFMCL, but as a cumulative mechanism through which formally adopted reform instruments may generate compliance-oriented practices without fully realizing their substantive accountability objectives.
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