Social Municipality Perception in Turkey: A Case Study in the Istanbul, Izmir, Adana, Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipalities

Abstract. Social municipality, in the broadest sense, can be defined as an approach, to develop citizen and community-based practices where municipalities focuses on human on its policies. Tracks of this mentality in Turkey dates back to 90's when approach expanded its impact area with personal efforts of some mayors and has been accepted as an vital element of policy on promotion and competition of cities. Social municipality applications mostly shaped as social aids, social services and cultural activities. The purpose of this thesis is to detect the scope of the social municipality based services which has been performed by metropolitan municipalities and also defining the perception and attitude of the beneficiaries and practitioners toward those services. To achieve this purpose, a literature review about social state/welfare state, social politics and social municipality presented. Followingly had explained social municipality based services which has conducted by metropolitan municipalities. Finally, data obtained from the field research was analyzed with frequency distributions, one-sample t-test, two independent samples t-test and chi-square tests by using SPSS package software. At the end of study, it was found that scope of social services varies between metropolitan municipalities, however faced problems look similar. And also significant perceptional and attitudinal differences found between beneficiaries and practitioners toward social municipality based services.Key Words: Public Administration, Local Governments, Welfare State, Social Policy, Social Municipality. JEL. D73, H00, H70, H75, I00