The autonomy of the local governments in a unitary state

A unitary state is a kind of state in which the elements of state, respectively, territory, sovereignty and nation are indivisible and unitary. Unitary model was adopted in the 1982 Constitution in the form of unity and territorial integrity of the state. According to the Constitution, the principles of centralization and decentralization are prevailing together in the administrative organisation in our country, which has adopted unitary state model in its political organisation. In this regard, our study is derived from the obligation of applying unitary state model together with the administrative autonomy of the local government which is a result of the principle of decentralization.In the Constitution, the autonomy of the local governments, namely, provincial special administration, municipality and village administration include the administrative autonomy and fiscal autonomy. In the study, local governments have been examined individually in order to clarify the concept of autonomy in a better manner. Moreover, the subject matter has been discussed in terms of the European Charter of Local Self Government and debates regarding the issue of autonomy in the renewed Constitution.Unitary state, which means unity in the political organisation, shall secure the integrity of administration as a requisiteness of unity in the administative organisation as well. In this sense, in our study, the power of administrative tutelage has been analyzed as a limit of the autonomy of local governments in the unitary state model.