The Quest for Community Participation in Decision Making Process in Büyükkonuk (North Cyprus)

ABSTRACT: Social Sustainability deals with people and the issue of building and preserving a quality of life. Community involvement in decision making is still at its birthing stages when it comes to the issue of Social Sustainability and not much literature is available on North Cyprus on that ground. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the development of a consciousness about community participation in decision making and whether it can be implemented in Büyükkonuk, a village in the north east of the island of Cyprus. There is some form of deliberative process existing in the village but on a minor scale. In this thesis, research was carried out in the Büyükkonuk Village, which is an eco-village in North with regards to the views of the locals concerning the issue of deliberative democracy and to access its level based on the knowledge gathered through successful cases of deliberative democracy round the world and see how it can formally be implemented in Büyükkonuk. A Survey was carried out by means of user questionnaires, interviews, personal observations and photographs. Büyükkonuk was chosen because of its attempt at the deliberative democracy process. The results of the survey indicated the willingness of people of Büyükkonuk to take part in a fully fledged application of the deliberative democracy process. In line with this, this thesis, in its conclusions, put forward some recommendations to tailor the deliberative democracy process to suit the villagers of Büyükkonuk with the aim of improving their quality of life. Keywords: Social Sustainability, Decision Making, Community Involvement, Büyükkonuk North Cyprus. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………