The cooperation models oriented to support the adaptation process to the European Union of municipalities and non-governmental organizations in Turkey: European house case

With the acceleration of legislations about adaptation to the European Union since 1999, the studies concerning this topic have begun to gain much more importance. Especially, adaptation of Turkish laws and regulations to the Acquis Communitaire, such as constitutional amendments, adaptation packages, national programs, the Accession Partnership Document that has been prepared by European Union, guide Turkey in this process.These changes can be observed especially in the fields of local governments, civic rights and liberties. As the European Union heads towards deeper political and constitutional integration, the importance of local and regional governments and civic consciousness have also grown. This can be observed in the education and research projects which are supported by the European Union. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation has been to propose a model about the cooperation between local governments and Non-Governmental Organizations.In the first section, the emergence of civic rights and liberties, global values, and development of related concepts and the relationship between Turkey and European Union have been expounded. In the next chapter, the historical development of local governments in Turkey, and the transformations in the local governments due to the adaptation process to the European Union have been evaluated. Besides, the examples which aim to improve the cooperation between civil society and local governments were also included in this chapter. In the last section, the results of the Europe Houses Research Excursion, in which 8 Europe Houses in 4 European countries were visited, were presented and finally a model proposal has been developed to establish a Europe House in Antalya to improve cooperation between civil society and local governments.