Local Administrations Reform in Russia: Comparison with the Turkish Local Administrations

Local government is a part of the national public administration system and is believed to be an effective administration style and to have better representative mechanisms. Particular emphasis on local governments is made because of the crisis of representation in the global era and in different countries local governance reforms are carried out as an important component of administrative reforms. Russia’s unique historical, geographical, socio-cultural, economic, administrative characteristics determined its administrative style based mainly on the central government. However, new legislative decisions and policies in the sphere of local administration in the country have been implemented. But in general, despite the contemporary trends Russia seems not to change radically its centralized administrative tradition. Turkey, by contrast, seems to be committed to strengthening local democracy within the framework of decentralization policies. This study draws primarily conceptual framework of local government and the reform, then the local government reforms in Russia and Turkey are discussed in comparison.