Social municipalities in local governments in Turkey: Üsküdar Municipality example

In every period of history, people regarded helping each other as a religious responsibility, and wealthy people contributed to their human life by extending hand to poor, needy people in the direction of philanthropy. However, Industrial Revolution has a special importance for social policy. As a matter of fact, with the Industrial Revolution, social policy became a scientific discipline and a number of regulations were implemented to prevent the unrest between the working class and the employer, which emerged after the revolution. In the face of changing circumstances, the changing conditions have had to expand the scope of social policy and have begun to produce policies covering many groups. Today, central governments share the duties and responsibilities of public service provision with the local administrations, as well as the influence of changes in the world. The municipalities in our country which have the preliminary plan within the local administration units offer various services and services for the peace and well-being of the citizens living within their borders besides the classical municipality services. Such social welfare and social service applications of the municipalities reveal the concept of social municipality. Along with the changing local government laws since 2004, municipalities are equipped with considerable social responsibilities at the point of being a social policy bearer. In this study; The concept of social municipality in local governments in Turkey has been studied through Üsküdar Municipality. In the first two chapters of this study, social policy, social state, social municipality concepts have been tried to be explained in a broad way. In the third part, social municipal services applied by Üsküdar Municipality to disadvantaged groups were evaluated. Keywords: Local Governments, Social Policy, Social Municipality, Social Service, Üsküdar Municipality.