Participation culture at local government: The case of Konya Metropolitan Municipality

Local governments are based upon fundamental values such as ?effectiveness?, ?freedom?, ?self-determination?, ?redistribution of resources? and ?democratic participation?. Among them, the reason why democratic participation, which is also the starting point of labor, is seen as a value of local governments is because local governments are generally accepted as the best administrative unit where democratic participation is applied. On the other hand, the concept of participation is divided into political and administrative participation. The administrative participation yet shows diversity within itself. Administrative participation means that, on one hand, excluded from the institution, the participation of citizens who are affected by the activities of the institution; and on the other, giving the workers of the institution who work within the institution right to have a say in the matter decisions that are taken and the policies that are made. Furthermore, both the fact that it is a prominent concept at the new administrative perceptions in a theoretical level and its implementation through new administrative tools and methods in practical level is the indication of the day by day increasing importance and legitimacy of the administrative participation.In order to be applied fully assimilatedly by the relevant sectors such as the citizens, the workers, and the non-governmental organisations, administrative participation needs to be a 'culture', only so can this occur. In this context, a value worth investigating for, ?culture of participating? stands out. Culture of participation theoretically is made up of ?social culture?, ?political culture? and ?administrative culture?; takes place within the social culture and at the intersection of the administrative culture. As for the local governmental dimension of the participation culture itself comes to life by the concerning cultural accumulations of the the citizens living in that region. In case of Turkey, participation culture and its local governmental dimension, embodies remarkable developments. Especially in the modern sense, development of the culture of participation since the Administrative Reforms era which was created by the local government units, is accepted as another important field of research.In order to have a better analysis on the current status of the culture of participation, doing a field researching method, the public survey, has been seemed appropriate, and for this, Konya, a city with one of the biggest and richest local government traditions in Turkey, is preferred. In this context, two distinct surveys were built for the citizens residing in the city centre and the Konya Metropolitan Municipality workers. Thus, both distinctive and comparative analysis took place to address the situation of the application of theoretical infrastructure of both the administrative participation and administrative cultures of the culture of participation on its main axis.