European Charter of Local Self Government and Decentralization in Northern Cyprus
Deniz Iscioglu
Asst. Prof. Dr. Deniz Iscioglu, Department of Business and Administration, Public Administration Program, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, N.Cyprus, Mersin 10 Turkey.
Manuscript Received on August 11, 2014. | Revised Manuscript Received on August 12, 2014. | Manuscript published on August 15, 2014. | PP: 8-11 | Volume-1 Issue-1, August 2014.
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: The concept of administration has started to have varying definitions in the globalizing world. Efforts are put at both local and international level to ensure more democratic, more participatory and more transparent administrations. Under the light of these developments, the European Charter of Local Self Government carries utmost importance to bring a more modern structure to local governments at international level. Fulfillment of the requirements of the Charter by local governments is a major necessity both for state administration and for local people. First, the local administration system in North Cyprus (NC) will be reviewed in this study. Then, the European Charter of Local Self Government will be examined and compliance of the legal framework and practices in NC with the charter will be discussed. Thus, it will be determined if NC has a modern local government approach. There are limited studies in literature which investigate the level of compliance of the local government system in NC with the European Charter of Local Self Government. In this respect, the understanding of locality in NC is utterly important for its national democracy. This study was planned as a qualitative research. Data were mainly collected by document reviews and interviews. In the study, all written and non-written sources, mainly legal documents associated with the theme of the study, were reviewed in detail. Furthermore, opinions of field experts were taken. The study outcome provided that the local government system in NC is largely compliant with the European Charter of Local Self Government. However, the fact that laws of NC comply with the Charter does not mean requirements of the Charter are complied with in practice. Shortly, there are numerous problems with the practice in the local government system in NC. Solutions to the concerned practical problems are provided in the recommendations section of this study. It believed that this study will shed light on practices in the local government system in NC.
Keywords: Democracy, European Charter of Local Self Government, Globalization, Locality in NC.