Participation in puplic administration: Sample cases at local level in Turkey

In today's world, the concept of public administration is transforming within a participatory administration understanding and administrations are making effort to further their democracies. Participation is one of the most significant elements of democratic administrations. The crisis that representative democracies experience, the questioning of the legitimacy of administrations and the development of governance approach have awakened the representative debates within administration. Direct participation of citizens in the administration may be regarded as utopia. Nevertheless, participation should be increased for an ideal democratic society structure. Within this thesis, participation tools that are applied in some of the Western countries in order to increase citizens' participation in public administration, especially within local administrations are examined. Lastly, some successful examples of participatory practice in Turkey were also inclueded. In this context, Association of Committees for Monitoring Parliamentarians and Elected Officials (TÜMİKOM), District Advisory Councils (SEDAM), Çanakkale Municipality Participatory Budget Implementation, Civil Society Development Center, IZKA's "We're Planning Future of Izmir", TEPAV's Citizen Report Cards, City Council of Bursa and Baraka examples were perused. KEYWORDS: Public Administration, Governance, Democracy, Participation Tools, Public Paticipation in Public Administration