The representing problem in municipalities: Bingöl municipal assembly

Nowadays, democracy is accepted as an necessary value in modern world.Beside trying to apply democracy in practice, it is aimed to spread to the wholesociety.For direct democracy it is difficult to be implemented, people nowadayschoose their administrators at both national and local levels. However, it has beenseen that those who have been elected do not properly represent people who electedthem.In Turkey, the local administrative system, which was established duringTanzimat era, has continued to remain in the shadow of central administration untiltoday. Beside the effects of the central system, at local assemblies there has alwaysbeen shortcomings related to the proper representation of the people.In this study, the question of `at what level are the municipal assembliesable to represent people?? is being examined. Therefore, the purpose of this study isalso to contribute to the previous studies.While in the second and third chapters, the literature was reviewedregarding to this question in general; in the fifth chapter, the link between thenational political and economic problems and the direction of local politicalpreference has been established. Finally, a survey has been carried out among themembers of the Bingol Municipal Assembly about the question of representation.The survey aims to find out to what extent the members of the Bingol MunicipalAssembly represent the people of Bingol.The survey results demonstrates that there is a relationship between the localpolitical preferences and national problems and the national politicies. Local politicalpreferences are affected by what?s happening at the national level. It has beenobserved that the members of the municipal assembly do not bear characteristics andqualities which reflect the choice of people. It has also been found that the processof assembly formation and the decision-making process is far from being democratic.Key words: Democracy, Local Administrations, Representation, MunicipalAssembly.