Academic

This thesis examines the impact of bureaucratic purges on public service provision, focusing on the Turkish government's dismissal of nearly 130,000 public employees between 2016 and 2018 following a failed coup attempt. Leveraging novel administrative data on each dismissed state employee, it begins with an analysis of the spatial and administrative distribution of the dismissals. The research primarily moves beyond canonical approaches that view purges as power consolidation through elite purges, and instead captures the broader societal impacts by assessing changes in the state's service delivery capacity post-purge. Using a difference-in-differences model to analyze how varying magnitudes of dismissals affect public teachers on students' standardized test performance, findings reveal a decrease in student performance at the district level, while similar analyses for police dismissals do not indicate crime rate changes. Overall, this study seeks higher external validity by moving beyond limited samples and inherent methodological constraints in prior work on bureaucratic capacity's impact on public services.

How do large-scale dismissals of public employees based on political affiliation affect state capacity? Although disruptions in public service provision are expected when states increasingly rely on street-level bureaucrats, the short-term consequences of removing those recruited through patronage networks remain understudied. This study examines the impact of bureaucratic purges on service delivery by analyzing large-scale teacher dismissals in Turkey following the 2016 coup attempt. Leveraging variation in dismissal intensity across administrative units as an exogenous shock, the analysis employs two-way fixed effects (TWFE) and random effects estimators to assess the effects on student performance in high school entrance exams. The findings indicate a significant decline in exam scores after teacher dismissals. In addition, the study explores the spatial distribution of dismissals and their links to authoritarian decision-making. By bridging research on bureaucratic turnover, state capacity, and educational outcomes, this study offers insight into the implications of politically motivated interventions on public service provision.