Local authority associations: The case of village associations in Çanakkale and its districts

11 ABSTRACT Local govenment jn Turkey, which is organized as private provincial governance, municipalities and villages seek to fulfill their duties attributed by law, by using the funds given them However in Turkey, because of the reason that, organization of local government on the basis of so many small units, it has some deficiencies for covering their own local expenses by their own. For this very reason, like in the other countries in the world, our local administration units, form unions for increasing their power. The number and the types of the local administration onions are inclined by 1960s. However because of the lack of necessary legal arrangements these unions act as unobserved, unsupervised, and even legal organizations. For this reason, an act to arranged the duties and authorities of these unions should be codified. Approximately the numbers of these unions is estimated as 1500 and over the half of these are founded by the governors under the heading of "Köylere Hizmet Götürme Birlikleri" Within the adminitration and the supervision of these unions, governors plays a prominent role. After 1990s we observe a new type of unions serving for environment, tourism and infrastructure and they differs not only in terms of finance but also in terms of the fullfilment of their duties from the former. In the agriculture we also observe irrigaion unions and they are also differing from the former. As a conclusion, unions serve for the development of local units together with they enhance the governence and by which they encourage democratic habits.