Participation of women in Turkey in the local politics and the importance of the mission of "neighbourhood mahtar" : The case of Manisa

It is not possible to say that women are adequately represented in the political arena in Turkey. The place where the lack of women in the political arena is felt the most is in local governments, which have a lower representation rate compared to national politics. The male-dominated way of doing politics in Turkey also leads to women moving away from politics and not being fully integrated. The fact that women want to be actively involved in this field has led them to turn to other alternatives. One of the institutions that attracted the most attention in the last elections was the office of the Mukhtar. This institution differs from other local government units in that there is no upper limit for a candidacy and people who meet the legal requirements can easily run for the office. For this reason, the office of community leader can be seen as an important phenomenon for women's participation. The paper consists of four main parts. In the first part, the historical development of women's political rights and their projects to increase women's participation in local politics are mentioned. In the second part, the concept of neighbourhood, the establishment of the headmen's organisation and its legal arrangements are mentioned, the link between local politics and local democracy is discussed, and finally the concept of participation and the types of participation are mentioned. In the third part, information about Manisa is given. In the fourth part, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 women district leaders in the central districts of Manisa and the results were studied. According to the results, it was concluded that Mukhtar women contributed to their active role at the local level by being willing to run for office, fighting for more mentality and seeing themselves as role models by trying to break down stereotypes.