Abstract:

City Councils, are institutions that have “political identity” as well. According to the City Councils Regulation, having been created after the general local elections  and regulations for elected mayor’s active role in the formation of new city council oblige them to have a political identity.  Political function, which is the reason of existence of the city council, is made ineffective due to political identity enforcement. Thus, it can be said that “political identity” enforcement is to be found  on the basis of efficiency problems related to city councils in Turkey. Therefore, the examination of legislation that regulates city councils is seen necessary by considering the previously mentioned problematic. In this study, City Councils are problematized in terms of “political function” and “political identity”. The problematic disscussed in this study will be analyzed on the basis of a practical case. For this purpose, the case currenty took place in Atakum (Samsun) and led to the constitution of two different city councils will be disscussed.  In last local elections, a different party’s candidate won the Mayorship of Atakum than previous one. On the other hand, the city council administration constituted in the previous period was elected again along with newly changed municipality formation. The new mayor declaring derecognition of this newly elected administration due to violation of legislation summoned general assembly for a new city council and elections were held. Currently, the city of Atakum is of two city council administration. In this context, this situation can be seen as an essential case study in terms of the paradox between “political function” and “political identiy” issues in our country. After having been discussed the functions of city councils in the context of local politics, legal and administrative processes that leads to formation of “political identity” of city councils will be analyzed. These discussions will be carried out on the basis of the assessments that will be obtained during the interviews, which will be conducted with these two newly formated city councils of Atakum.  This study carried out by literature review and in-depth interviews is significant to look at the efficiency problems of city councils from a different dimension in our country. 

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