Partnership within the framework of governance and the town-twining relations of the municipal governments: Ankara Metropolitan Municipality example

Making their influences known in the 20th century, phenomena such as "governance, partnership and town twinning" have undergone a vast range of practical implementation in local governments and the importance attributed to these phenomena has come into prominence all over the world. The phenomenon of partnership, which can be described as a strategy used in governance, has brought about town twinning relations. For this reason, this thesis has been written in order to exhibit how these phenomena affect governmental institutions both in the modern world and in daily life. Another purpose of the present study is to determine the economic, social, cultural and environmental effects of regional or national town-twinning implementations which have not been quite touched upon in this frame. No matter how much the local governments enforce or try to enforce a governance model in their own entities, the continuously varying needs in today's conditions have made it obligatory to establish some partnerships and co-operations in national and international areas. Faced with the requirements of the globalized world, at the point where the municipalities could not find a solution through their own means, they looked for a solution through affiliation and town-twinning, and they saw that the needs were not only economic; the countries and the cities would like to know the cultures of one another both on a national and an international level. In the light of these data, the relations of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, with its twin towns and the effects these relations create have been examined in this study. KEY WORDS: Governance, Local Partnerships, Town-Twinning