Yaslikaya, Refik2020-06-252020-06-252019Yaslıkaya R. (2019). Yerel Yönetimlerde Ölçeği Büyütmenin Siyasi Sonuçları: Avrupa’da Belediye Birleşmeleri Üzerinden Bir İnceleme. Amme İdaresi Dergisi, 52(1), 33 - 65.1300-1795https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12587/7831Local government agencies have two main functions. First carrying out local public services and, second to involve citizens in the process of making public decisions as a democratic institution. During the history, plenty of local government reforms had been done all over the world to fulfill these functions. One of the reforms is Municipal amalgamations and it has a history almost one and a half century. Voluntary or compulsory policies for municipal amalgamations had been implemented by many countries during this period. Increasing the scale for expectation of saving cost was the justification of policies every time. But, many of the researchs result did not validate the thesis of scale economies in the amalgamated municipalities. Increasing the scale doesn't reduce the costs. In addition to this, it has negative effects on democratic participation. In amalgamated municipalities, the decline of the participation ratio is a clear indicator of this. This study starts with justifications of amalgamation, which has a large proportion of scale economies thesis and it contains examples of different European countries' experiences that demonstrate the reducing effects of scale expansion over the democratic participation phenomenon. The aim of the study is to show that amalgamation, which is based on the economic efficiency thesis is a threat for the rights of citizens' democratic participation and also to show that amalgamation has insensitive to differences and centralizing them with a monolithic approach. It is possible to see the traces of a similar approach in our countries' local government reforms (especially metropolitan reforms). Examples of Turkey aren't included in the scope of this study. However, it is considered that years of experience in European countries has a pave the way for the future reforms in Turkey.trinfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessScale economiesmunicipalitydemocratic local governmentlocal participationlocal representationlocal electionsreform in local governments6360Article52133652-s2.0-85069439018Q4trdizinikyokturWOS:000474730400002Q4