The main question of this thesis is whether incumbency affiliation and political competition have an effect on social spending decisions of the local governments in Turkey, especially through strategic allocation of sub-national resources. The findings provide partial support for strategic fiscal choices of social spending at the local level, especially for metropolitan municipalities that hold partisan ties with national incumbents. While mayors that have partisan ties with national incumbents tend to increase spending on social assistance services in their stronghold provinces, they tend to spend more on health services in face of political competition. Moreover, electoral analysis examines the effect of particularistic social spending decisions on the vote share of political parties at the elections. The spending on health services as well as spending on social assistance increases the vote shares of political parties that hold mayors' position at the national elections
