The world has witnessed a transformation process associated with the drastic changes in social, political and economic spheres under the constraints of neo-liberalism with opening up new challenges for humanity. At that context, as a global problem, poverty has been aggravating at the world-wide and now urban areas are more exposed to risks of poverty. In this regard, reforms of that restructuring process have centered on the requirement of local administrations at poverty struggle. The purpose of this study is to explore local policy initiatives of local administrations at combating urban poverty with also taking into consideration the central government practices. By the help of the GEKA provinces of Denizli, Aydin, and Mugla cases, urban poverty struggle has been examined in detail by a method covering survey application to the impoverished and the in-depth interview method with local and central government officials. At the study, it is seen that in each case study, local administrations have different institutional, political and social service based contingency variables. Local authorities of case provinces cannot produce systematic, standardized, equal and general poverty alleviation policies and services because of the inherent nature of local government tied to uneven development and contingent local variation. Thus, within the limitation of the study, urban poverty struggle have been searched in specific cases, but it is not possible to determine the results of the research to other cases in Turkey. Even though the research covers up few cases at the urban level, the results will be worthwhile and shed light on other future studies.

Global policies in disaster management have radically changed since 1990s, shifting the previously entrenched emphasis on emergency management, towards new applications of risk management. A series of international declarations expressed the determination and principles to reduce risks at every level, which were followed by many national governments. The disaster management system in Turkey seems to tend towards this approach, not necessarily based on an awareness of the global trends, but due to the severe impacts of the 1999 events. Since no understanding and political commitment for disaster mitigation prevails in Turkey, risk mitigation planning at every level is yet far from being effective. This claim constitutes the basic working hypothesis of the study. Verification of the hypothesis is based on a comparative analysis of the organizational structures of the selected countries, and a survey of recent local performance. The framework developed by the Kobe Conference is employed in both analyses. The former analysis indicated that despite the new institutional developments like &lsquo / construction supervision&rsquo / and &lsquo / obligatory insurance&rsquo / , Turkey in its disaster policy is still far from a comprehensive mitigation approach in terms of the Kobe criteria. Although the laws of local administrations now contain new tasks of city-level disaster management, not only confusions between pre-disaster and post-disaster responsibilities prevail, but no operational guidance is given for the fulfillment these responsibilities. A whole range of activities are therefore in need of being streamlined into the tasks of urban planning in the reduction of disaster risks. With the amendment of laws, modification of the professional practice and the training of planners are expected.

S’interrogeant sur leur permanence ou leur déclin. L’imaginaire se présente alors comme une ressource qui aide à « faire société ». A cette performance, le droit administratif, en particulier, n’y est pas étranger, puisqu’il donne corps à l’imaginaire par la création et l’invention de normes.Toutefois, les défaillances de la puissance publique — régulièrement dénoncées — signalent tantôt un affaiblissement, tantôt une saturation, voire même une transformation de l’imaginaire public. L’action publique apparaît comme victime de l’imaginaire, victime à la fois d’un trop plein mais aussi d’une absence d’imaginaire, les deux n’étant pas étranger à une surdétermination économique des enjeux de l’action publique territoriale. Cette tension conduit à s’interroger sur les phénomènes qui vitrifient la capacité d’imagination des acteurs publics. Alors que les collectivités territoriales sont considérées comme des prestataires de services et de droits individuels, quels symboles, quelles représentations, quelles promesses, l’action publique porte-t-elle aujourd’hui ? Quels sont les « nouveaux imaginaires politiques » possibles ? Existe-t-il des ouvertures utopiques qui permettraient de penser une action publique différente de celle que nous connaissons ? Il est ainsi question de mettre à jour les imaginaires qui innervent l’action publique. Les mettre à jour car ils empruntent des souterrains qui les rendent invisibles mais pourtant bien présents dans l’action publique territoriale d’aujourd’hui. / This research concern myths and tales who structure the territorial public sector. The purpose is to conduct a réflexion about their permanency or their decline. Then, imaginary must be understood like a way to « make society ». Administrative law, specifically, contribute to the performance of the imaginary by creating and inventing norms. However, the failures of the public sector — frequently denounced — signal sometimes a weakening, a saturation or a transformation of the public sectorimaginary. The public policies appears like a victim of the imaginary, a victim of an excess or a lack of imaginary, maybe because of the pressure and the influence of the economic power. This strain drives to interrogate themselves on the phenomena who cancel the capability of imagination among the public actors. While the local administrations are considered like service providers and individual rights providers too, which symbols, which representations, which promises does the public sector carry today ? What are the « new political imaginaries » ? Can we re-model public policies with utopia ? The question is to update the imaginaries attached to public policies. These imaginaries are invisible, hidden in the undergrounds but the are really present in the way to drive and build public policies today.