Hakkari Municipality in the 2000s and social municipalism

Hakkari and Social Approach of Hakkari Municipality in the 2000s'' is the thema of the thesis. Hakkari situated at the south-east corner of Anatolia, close at Iran and Iraq borders, is one of the most underdeveloped and backwards parts of Turkey. It's out of the way location and its mountainous geography does not facilitate trade and transportation. The main economic activity is agriculture and especially raising livestock. Urban population is limited and formed partly by the government employees. Local Municipality itself is rather new but progressing. Unfortunately, separatist terror activities, quite numerous in Hakkari province, taking advantage of the mountainous geography of the area, created very negative impacts on the development of the city. However, as central authorities took severe measures against the terror activities and with the cooperation of the local municipality terror activities decreased, Hakkari began to take successful steps towards socio-economic development. Tourism, winter sports activities, canoeing are progressing. Local leaders, whether they belonged to conservative or progressive parties, adopted social approaches. Social municipalism approach serves to help low-income individuals, disadvantages individuals and big masses living within the municipality border and thus protecting them from ostracization. Moreover, through social municipalism, some investments are made for the community to the benefit of rather low-income sources. Examples of those investments include the services such as bread factories serving public interest, nursing homes, and guest houses. Key Words: Social Municipalism, social state (welfare state), Hakkari Municipality.