Abstract:

Governments are experimenting with various methods to improve the practice of representative democracy, which is the highest regime ever found. In this sense, participation in governance is important for a democratic administration. One way to do this is by ensuring the direct or indirect participation of the people and their expression of themselves. In this regard, it is necessary to find, reveal and develop new ways and methods. The concept of governance is a broad concept that also includes participation. Governance was first mentioned in seventeenth-century France. In the public administration literature, governance was frequently discussed by name with the neoliberal transformation worldwide. It became widespread with the inclusion of the United Nations (UN), the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) in their policies in international organizations. The actors of governance are the state, public, private sector and non-governmental organizations. Various legal arrangements are made for stakeholder participation in public institutions. Amendments were made in this direction in Law No. 5018, Law No. 5216, Law No. 5302 and Law No. 5393. The Presidency of Strategy and Budget of Republic of Türkiye are working to ensure stakeholder participation. As a local government unit in the strategic plan process, it has been a legal obligation for municipalities to provide stakeholder participation since 2019. It is necessary to ensure the participation of internal and external stakeholders in the construction of the strategic plan, which must be implemented in public institutions and also municipalities that are local government units. The objective of the study is to measure the participation level of stakeholders in management for strategic planning process in the case of Çorum Municipality. For this reason, municipal representations (118 subjects) as internal stakeholders and public, private sector and non-governmental organization representations living in the city center as external stakeholders (274 subjects) were contacted. It was aimed to determined participation levels by asking pre-fabricated questionnaires. Questions regarding municipal services and participation levels were answered positively or negatively by both stakeholders within the framework of subject titles. It was concluded that internal stakeholders were more satisfied with working in the municipality.

Keywords: