Dr. Merve Ateş

Project Specialist

Merve Ateş works as a project specialist of our project titled “Metropolitan Municipality Governance Scorecard.” She takes a role in developing a theoretical approach and a methodology to measure good governance in metropolitan municipalities.

She completed her undergraduate education in the field of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. She received her master’s degree and a doctorate in political science from Sabancı University. She wrote her master's thesis on democratic institutionalization in municipal councils. As part of her Ph.D. thesis on democratic governance at the local level in Turkey, she analyzed accountability and the rule of law in Turkish municipalities and created an original dataset based on the Turkish Court of Accounts’ municipal audit reports.

Her ongoing research focuses on the patterns of democratization at the local level, accountability, and corruption. She also lectures in the field of political science.