The contribition of local government associations to sister city relations: Sample of Union of Turkish World Municipalities

With the globalization, the increasing interaction around the world has caused change and transformation in every platform, like in local governments. Local problems' international effects and effective service providing efforts led local governments specifically municipalities to cooperate by their own efforts or via unions of local governments. Sister city relation is one of the ways of this cooperation. However, for a municipality, to find a sustainable and effective sister city is not always possible with only their efforts. Therefore, local communities associations, which are the most comprehensive form of cooperation established between local authorities, mediate to find the right sister city by guiding their members in the area of sister cities. In this thesis, basic principles about the subject will be explained and the sister city relations will be examined in detail and the contribution of the local government associations to this field will be examined by using the example of the Union of Turkish World Municipalities (TDBB). Keywords: Local Governments, Union of Local Governments, Sister City, Twin City, Cooperation, TDBB