Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2023

Abstract

The majority of the world's population now lives in urban areas, making cities targets of warfare and areas of insecurity in recent years. This has led to a growing interest in urban security and a shift towards the militarization of traditional police forces. However, the relationship between urban security and securitization is not well understood in the literature, and research on the implications of public resource allocation is limited. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of public security spending in reducing insecurity in urban areas in Turkey, against the backdrop of increased securitization in the 2000s. The study uses data from 81 provinces between 2010 and 2018 and constructs two alternative indicators of insecurity. The results show that an increase in security spending reduces provincial insecurity, while public-private wage inequality and out-migration from insecure provinces increase insecurity. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for democracy and human rights.

Journal Title

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

ISSN

2334-282X

Publisher

Middle East Economic Association and Loyola University Chicago

Volume

25

Issue

1

Comments

Presentation of the articles in the Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies was made possible by a limited license granted to Loyola University Chicago and Middle East Economics Association from the authors who have retained all copyrights in the articles.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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