Local representation in Turkey, participation and democracy:The case of Balçova

Democracy is a term that emerges in a certain social and historical period of the communities with the states and evolves over time and it is evaluated in the context of freedom and prosperity of today's societies. It is widely accepted that local administrations, as the closest administrative institutions, have a relatively higher possibility of participation by the public and have important functions in the realization of democracy. However, with the globalization process, intensive discussions have started on the terms about the participation and the democracy. It is observed that these debates are focused especially on the point that representative liberal democracies can no longer fulfill the expectations. The aim of this study; to seek the answers to the questions about the municipal councilors who are elected through elections by the public, can represent the public or cannot represent them and at what level the public is determinated by the councilors at the Municipality of Balçova. In other words, the aim of this study is to determine the terms about representation, participation, democracy in local administrations and how much these terms are meaningful and applied in a local administration unit. The importance of the study stems from the election of a municipality that is managed by the opposition party. Opposition parties in Turkey have suggested that various problems related to democratic governance are existing. The management of Balçova municipality and the metropolitan municipality by the opposition parties rather than the ruling party for many years is important in terms of the degree of realization of the unity of discourse and action. In addition to legislation and document analysis, semi-structured interview technique was used as a data collection technique. As a result of the researches and face-to-face interviews, it was concluded that the socio-cultural and economic structure of the people living in Balçova district was reflected to the municipal council to some extent, but in addition to this there were also problems in the participation of the people. Keywords: Local Administrations, Representation, Participation, Democracy, Balçova.