Aim of the course

In the joining process of Turkey into European Union, the understanding of social state and social municipality in local governments is gradually becoming widespread. In the scope of restructuring efforts in terms of local administrations, it is necessary to carry out renewal studies in the spheres of the municipalities’ activities and in their management methods. The main objective of the course is to get the students comprehend such terms ‘social state’ and ‘social municipality’, ‘participant municipality’ and ‘governance’ on the one hand, and to provide an understanding of the philosophy of social state and social municipality. In this context, social workers will be able to understand what kinds of work can be done in practice. Such an aim will provide satisfactory services, and will contribute to the democratizing of the local and central governments, and pleased citizens.

Context of the course

In the context of this course there will be introduced a number of new areas and methods recently developed in public and municipality administrations and their service provisions, and social state and its most important sub-institution municipality, social municipality, participant municipality, democratic municipality, and (social) governance topics will be discussed. In the course social state and social municipality’ sphere of activities and their practices and functions will take place, and there will be given some examples of social state and social municipality practices. In the course the place and importance of NGOs will be explained. It will be inclined to how mutual aid and solidarity were carried out in the past and is done in the present. There will be shown the difficulties in this regard and will be tried to find some solutions. Some assignments will be given to the students, and their assignments will be presented during the course, and critical points will be deeply discussed.