Digitalization and e-Municipality in local governments: Examples from the world and Turkey

In the light of technological developments, both central and local governments have started to offer many innovations and services in digital environment. The central government is trying to transfer different services to citizens through e-government and local governments are trying to transfer different services to citizens through electronic infrastructure with e-municipality applications. This study questions the reflection of digitalization on e-governance and especially on local governments, its benefits and the negativities encountered in the process. First of all, the process evolving from the traditional public administration view to the new public administration understanding is discussed comparatively, and the developments and reasons for the imbalance in local governments have been revealed. In parallel with these theoretical findings, the importance of digital government and e-government concepts are emphasized together with their benefits. Then, e-government and e-municipality activities in the world are examined by exemplifying their stages. It is determined that the digital services offered to citizens differ depending on the infrastructure and resource opportunities of countries and cities. Afterwards, the services provided by metropolitan municipalities in Turkey (30 metropolitan municipalities) through their websites in the electronic environment within the scope of e-municipalism were examined under the headings of "one-way information flow", "mutual or two-way communication" and "online transactions", and it was concluded that service delivery has improved, interaction has increased and citizens' participation has been encouraged thanks to the transformation of local government activities through digitalization and e-municipalism. Finally, the corporate websites of Ankara, Eskişehir, İstanbul and İzmir Metropolitan Municipalities and Eskişehir Odunpazarı and Tepebaşı Municipalities were analyzed in detail and the principles of efficiency, transparency, accessibility, participation and accountability were emphasized as in the whole study. In this respect, the study includes a content-case analysis based on the availability, functionality and benefits of the services offered within the scope of digitalization and e-municipalism in local governments.