Theses supervised by Prof. Dr. Ahmet İçduygu
12 theses · Koç University
Refugee activism and state policies in comparative perspective: Contentious voices from Greece and Turkey
This study examines forced migrant groups' access to the realm of activism practices in Turkey and Greece. It does this through considering the role of these states' refugee policies, refugees' interaction with pre-existing networks and politico-legal systems in the post-2010 period. The research aims to expose the underlying mechanisms that explain the diversification of refugee activism practices in two country cases by comparing similar forced migrant group's activisms whose origin of country is the same. It tries to establish an interconnected link between the spatial dimension of control and power seized by the state, together with policies and practices regarding the emergence of migrant and pro-migrant activism, by putting refugee agency at the center. The analysis presents comparative cases in three layers and how refugees position themselves differently in their access to rights contra to, or in alignment with, the state, civil society and themselves. Unfolding certain spaces enables us to tackle why activism diversifies, by scrutinizing the refugee agents' choice of actions and involvement in different mobilizations. The thesis categorizes activism in three layers – as high, medium and low in terms of the control of spaces – for example camp/border, urban and private realms. While private space – under the low-control layer – crosses across other spatial settings as a subjective autonomous dimension. The analysis contributes to the discussion between critical citizenship studies and the autonomy of the migration debate by arguing that both perspectives are complementary and interrelated within the structural setting. Therefore, the research seeks answers to explain the diversification of activism by combining a careful inquiry into refugee's agentic preferences in relation to the socio-political structures. Data for this study was collected between 2015-2018 through fieldwork visits to both countries, by conducting in-depth interviews with refugees and pro-refugee activists, bureaucrats and NGO workers; establishing a refugee activism dataset; collecting media coverage of the cases of contentious activism and overviewing secondary literature. The analysis of varying refugee activism practices illustrates refugees' strategic involvement in existing channels and networks. Yet, it also argues that the availability of these channels is highly dependent on the state's structural relationship with civil society, inclusive of refugee policies and the state's politico/legal setting. While this determines a space of opportunity to mobilize, the structural constraints and opportunities allow them to move forward in the state's 'desired' trajectory of activism. Analyzing the emergence, production, reproduction and diversification of multiple forms of refugee activisms through the lens of refugee agency, this study aims to contribute to the growing scholarly literature on migrant activism. It enables a dialogue between social movements literature with a particular interest in the activism and contentious movements of excluded and marginalized groups, i.e., refugees.
Greece-Türkiye land border: Locals' experiences and perspectives at the Turkish borderland
Greece-Türkiye land border is a sui generis case with its unilaterally "open" border regime within the context of European external border management. This thesis analyzes the role of Turkish borderland residents' daily practices and discourses in the sustenance and transformation of this border. The findings indicate that the mobility patterns and ownership regimes in the area and the moral narratives justifying locals' practices are inherent elements of the border and that the sudden change in the structural features of the border caused by the 2020 Edirne Events transformed these features of everyday life. In the current status quo, locals benefit from the economic opportunities of smuggling industry and their economic and humanitarian endeavors enable the migrants to travel in an unfamiliar landscape. Yet, the events also increased the feeling of insecurity and forced a form of co-habitation onto locals in which they unwillingly share their private and common spaces with migrants. These opportunities and insecurities are reframed in a moral narrative that positions locals as moral border workers, justifying their actions through representations of migrants' sufferings. Locals' discourses generating categories of "others" are by and large in rapport with this moral framework.
Political opportunity structures and transnational activism: The case of Iraqi Turkmen
This thesis offers an explanation on how immigrants mobilize in the political field across borders and questions how this mobilization interacts with the structural factors surrounding the immigrant communities with the case of Iraqi Turkmen living in Turkey. Dwelling on the transnationalism literature, the study aims at explaining that migrants engage with political activities at three different levels which are host country, home country and transnational space. Within this analytical framework, the study further addresses the kin state relation between Turkmen and the host country Turkey and questions the explanatory power of kin relations for transnationalism literature. The national and transnational contexts in which mobilization occurs offer opportunities and constraints for political actors. How wide or constrained these opportunity spaces, may determine the form, intensity level and success of the mobilization. Taking the political opportunity structures from social movements literature as the theoretical background, this study seeks an answer to the question of how opportunity spaces change in these three contexts over time and how this reflects over the mobilization patterns of Iraqi Turkmen. It tries to understand how these three opportunity structures interact and countervail each other while guiding the mobilization. It connects this discussion into the kin state relation between Turkey and Turkmen.
Political party positions towards Syrian refugees in Turkey: An overview between 2011 and 2021
The current thesis presents a comparative study of Turkish political parties' policy decisions regarding Syrian refugees in Turkey between 2011 and 2021 and tries to reveal similarities and differences in their policy choices on Syrian refugees. While doing so, it aims to explore the contributions of mainstream international relations theories (MIRTs) to explain the factors influencing policy decisions of political parties regarding Syrian refugees, along with other factors like national security/domestic politics, economy/social development, and the international refugee regime. Having built upon existing literature and research on the drivers of forced migration governance, this thesis designs an analytical framework that sheds light on the factors behind the policy positions of the five largest political parties in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) on Syrian refugees. The proposed analytical framework comprises four dimensions: international politics of forced migration, national security and domestic political agenda, national economy and social development, and the international refugee regime. To utilise this analytical framework, data for the study has been collected through semi-structured elite interviews with political party officials responsible for their parties' foreign policy vision and migration agenda and through various forms of political communication strategies used by political parties, including party programs, election manifestos, reports and policy notes, and public statements. The data collection process has been complemented with secondary data based on desk research and analysis of laws and regulations related to asylum. The findings of the current study indicate that policy decisions of political parties regarding Syrian refugees in Turkey could not be adequately analysed without putting them into the context of domestic and international politics. In this regard, the four-dimensional analytical framework offers a comprehensive and multifaceted sense of understanding of party-based approaches towards Syrian refugees in Turkey. Given the insights of international relations theories into how refugee policies are formulated, the current thesis reveals the importance of linking the discipline of international relations with the literature on refugee/forced migration studies.
Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) in Turkey's agriculture: farmers' social capital and agricultural institutions
Agrarian populations bear the brunt of the multifaceted impacts of the climate crisis, including slow-onset events such as drought, rising sea levels, land salinization, and water scarcity, as well as rapid-onset events such as storms, heatwaves, floods, and hail. They increasingly experience losses in yields, income, and livelihoods because they are highly dependent on environmental and climatic conditions. They adjust their on-farm and off-farm activities to such climatic challenges. Likewise, their capacity to adapt to climate change tend to differ based on existing socio-economic, political conditions, underlying vulnerabilities, and inequalities in as much as on the severity and frequency of climate change impacts. However, existing studies on climate change adaptation (CCA) in agriculture tend to have a skewed emphasis on the economic or proximate social dimensions of adaptation, while more profound social, and sociological aspects remain to be less examined. In light of these tendencies, this dissertation, from an interdisciplinary perspective, has three primary purposes. First, it probes farmers' climate change perceptions, main adaptation strategies and the adaptive and maladaptive consequences of such adaptation measures. Second, building upon the former, it focuses on the role of farmers' social capital (bonding social capital vs. bridging-linking social capital) in increasing their adaptive capacity. Third, it seeks an answer to the adaptive capacity of intermediate agricultural institutions with which farmers are in direct contact. In doing so, it expands the widely used demographic-socio-economic determinants of adaptation strategies by adding farmers scale (small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale farmers), vulnerability index (less vulnerable-vulnerable and highly vulnerable ones) alongside agricultural sources and methods. Apart from certain adaptation strategies and institutional endeavours that increase farmers' adaptive capacity, this study overall reveals that the majority of the farmers analysed tends to be closer to the maladaptive end of the continuum between successful adaptation and maladaptation. Among the main reasons are exacerbating climate change effects, insufficient adaptive capacities, path dependencies, partially effective social capital and formal institutions, and a lack of innovative, inclusive, and sustainable climate policies. Thisstudy relies on an extensive fieldwork from 2021 to 2023 in three research areas from Turkey (Afyonkarahisar-Şuhut, Mersin-Erdemli and Şanlıurfa-Eyyübiye), each being reliant on agriculture and under various impacts of climate change. Primary data collected by the author consist of survey interviews with 111 farmers, semi-structured in-depth interviews with 53 farmers and 48 survey questionnaires and 29 semi-structured in-depth interviews with experts/officials from intermediate agricultural institutions. The latter comprise chambers of agriculture, district and provincial directorates of agriculture, agricultural cooperatives, irrigation associations, and seed-fertilizer-pesticide companies. Feeding on mixed method approach, it primarily utilizes descriptive statistics, column proportion tests, logistic regression, critical-comparative approach, and qualitative analysis. Likewise, apart from filling significant gaps in existing research on (mal)adaptive, relational, and institutional dynamics of research on climate change adaptation in agriculture at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, this study also represents the first endeavour in this direction within the context of Turkey. Keywords: Climate change, (mal)adaptation, agriculture, adaptation strategies, bonding social capital, bridging-linking social capital, vulnerability, climate change governance, formal institutions, institutional adaptive capacity, sustainability.
Identity transformation and transnational solidarity in "double diasporas": The Syrian Circassians in Türkiye
This dissertation explores the diasporic identity transformations and transnational solidarity practices of Syrian Circassians who were displaced by the Syrian civil war and resettled in Türkiye. Framed within the broader literature on forced migration, double diaspora, and transnationalism, the study aims to examine how a community already shaped by historical displacement navigates another forced migration. It particularly investigates how Syrian Circassians reconstruct their identities and maintain or reconfigure their transnational connections in a new sociopolitical context. This dissertation develops the concept of double diaspora to capture the layered experiences of Syrian Circassians, shaped by both historical exile from the Caucasus and recent displacement from Syria. By analyzing individual narratives and civil society dynamics, it contributes to diaspora studies by framing double diaspora as a lived process of ongoing negotiation across multiple homelands, identities, and solidarities. To address these questions, the dissertation adopts a multi-level methodological approach, combining individual and organizational perspectives. Through its empirical focus and reflexive engagement, this dissertation contributes both conceptually and methodologically to the study of double diasporas, illustrating how identity and solidarity are co-constructed across borders in the face of enduring displacement.
Politik oryantasyon ve vatandaşlık: Türk gençliğinin algılamaları ve deneyimleri
Citizenship is generally perceived as an issue that falls in the domain of nation-states.This study, instead, attempted to give a central focus to the pivotal position of individualcitizens in the whole citizenship concept. This thesis, drawing upon an empirical study,explored the perceptions and experiences of Turkish youth with different politicalorientations over citizenship and its three dimensions: legal status, identity, and civicvirtue. Two questions were central to the main purposes of the study; first, therelationship between political orientation and perceptions of citizenship; second, theinterplay among the legal status, identity, and civic virtue aspects of citizenship. In-depth interviews were conducted in the city of İstanbul with seventy university studentswith different political orientations, namely: republicans, nationalists, leftists, Islamists,liberals, Kurdish and apolitical groups.Overall, the results of this study revealed that the meaning of `being citizen?showed diversity in the mindsets of young people with different political orientations. Itwas found out that legal status was mostly subscribed by the liberal group, whereas thenationalist, Islamist, Kurdish, and apolitical groups tended to identify themselves withthe identity aspect, and the republican group with the civic virtue aspect. The leftistinterviewees, among the other study groups, did not draw a homogenous conception ofcitizenship. A secondary conclusion that emanated from the findings of this study wasthat the prevailing tendency to lay citizenship merely as a substance of rights and dutiesand formal membership in a particular community would fall short to cope with thecrises of the modern democratic states. There is a need to give a central attention to theidentity and civic virtue aspects of citizenship, which are inseparable constituents of thewhole citizenship concept.Keywords:Citizenship, political orientation, youth, legal status, identity, civic virtue.
Yurtdışına göç yoluyla kalkınma: Fas Krallığı ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti üzerine karşılaştırmalı bir çalışma
This study aims to delineate the evolution of discourses on the impact of emigration on socio-economic development in Morocco and Turkey since the signing of the first bilateral labour recruitment agreements with the West European countries in the early 1960s. The states? perceptions of the monetary remittances within their development strategies and the impact of these perceptions on the overall development processes are discussed in line with the emigration experiences of Morocco and Turkey from a comparative point of view. These experiences show that both Morocco and Turkey have passed through very similar phases of labour emigration in the same decades and shaped their perception of emigration-development nexus accordingly. These changes are scrutinized within the international political economic context of their times; the etatism of the 1960s and 1970s, neo-liberalism of the 1980s and 1990s, and globalisation and transnationalism of the 2000s. In line with the continuously changing international context, the literature on emigration-development nexus, specificly on remittances, has evolved from rigid optimist views of the 1950s and 1960s to pessimist approaches of the 1970s and 1980s, and finally it has been dominated by the studies conducted from pluralist views since the 1990s, which are mostly grouped under the title of new economics of labour migration (NELM).Acknowledging the context-sensitive nature of emigration-development nexus in migrant-sending countries, the role of remittances in the development scenes of Morocco and Turkey is discussed in relation to the avalibility of alternative sources of development finance in these countries. This study reveals the Moroccan and Turkish states? approaches towards emigration by relying on the official documents and previous studies on the subject, and examines the role attributed to remittances within the state development strategies by analysing various statistics from national and international sources. From being the main source of foreign currency for both Morocco and Turkey in the 1960s, remittances have relatively lost their importance as development finance in Turkey since 1980s with increasing amounts of foreign direct invetsment and tourism revenues while they are constantly strengthening their position as being financier of budget debts in Morocco. The process of emigration leading to such changes in the role of remittances has passed through three distinct phases, each of which has caused emergence of different perceptions and discourses regarding the developmental impact of emigration; officially regulated labour emigration to West Europe from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, emigration for family reunification, family formation, and asylum to West Europe and spread of labour immigration to the oil rich Arab countries from the mid-1970s to the 1990s, and rising impact of globalisation, transnationalism and the European Union on migration issues since the 1990s.
"Yabancılar" ve uluslararası göç: 1980 sonrası Türkiye
For much of the twentieth century, most migrants to Turkey were either ethnically Turkish or of Muslim origin. Since the early 1980s, however, Turkey has been confronted with growing inflows of ?foreigners? who are mostly non-Turkish and non-Muslim. This phenomenon has transformed Turkey into a ?real? country of immigration. During this period, Turkey's migration policy has also been profoundly influenced by European Union accession negotiations. This dissertation considers how Turkey's migration policy has evolved in response to changing, complex circumstances and competing demands. Emphasis is placed on the experiences of individual migrants, who are placed into two categories: (1) Irregular migrants, a group including circular migrants, transit migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. (2) Regular migrants, a group including documented residents and workers, as well as migrants of Muslim background or Turkish descent. This thesis discusses two main topics: (1) The evolution of Turkey's migration policies within the context of EU accession negotiations. (2) How such policies are experienced by and affect the migrants themselves. In discussing the first topic, many official EU parliamentary reports were subjected to rigorous content analysis. In exploring the second topic, the author relied on semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 25 migrants. This thesis ultimately concludes that the term
İltica ve göç üzerine pazarlık: AB ve Türkiye örneği
This study aims at examining and analyzing the mechanisms and dynamics of the negotiation process between the EU and Turkey on irregular migration and asylum. Main analysis is made by focusing on the negotiation processes of two major demands of the EU from Turkey on irregular migration and asylum: (a) lifting the geographical limitation from the 1951 Geneva Convention, and (b) signing a readmission agreement with the EU. Although the negotiation processes of these issues are held separately from the EU-Turkey accession negotiations, the EU membership prospect of Turkey is tightly connected to the outcomes of these negotiations. The study examines whether these negotiation processes are held in the framework of the global governance in a highly securitized framework. The methodological focus is qualitative. Mainly two data collection and data analyzing methods are used: (a) the field research consisted of meetings and semi-structured interviews, and (b) the secondary analysis of the existing statistics and documents. From an analysis of the preferences of the involved actors, it is found out that, the main issues, in which preferences of the involved actors mostly converge, are the significance of burden-sharing and a solid membership prospect for realization of both issues on the table. Additionally, despite of the state?s ongoing security discourse against migration, most of the actors involved have mainly prioritized the economic concerns, against the security related ones.
Kitlesel mülteci akınlarına devlet tepkileri: Türkiye'deki Bulgar Türkleri, Irak Kürtleri ve Suriyeliler örnekleri
This study presents an analysis of state responses to mass refugee movements with the theoretical frameworks of mainstream international relations (IR) theories in a comparative and historical manner, using the case of Turkey and three cases of mass influxes it received in the past three decades. Using data from archive data search of three daily newspapers in the relevant periods of 1989, 1991, and between 2011 and 2016, it makes qualitative content analysis of the discourse of Turkish state officials regarding mass refugee flows from Bulgaria, Iraq and Syria. The analysis is complemented by secondary data based on the national immigration and asylum laws and regulations that has developed through the course of refugee flows. Looking into the state discourse on different refugee groups, it investigates the relevance of the main arguments of IR theories in explaining the similarities and differences of the state policies regarding the three cases. The significance of sudden movements of a massive number of people into the state territory on the host county and on its international affairs, as well as the transformative effect of international regimes and organizations on state behavior come into prominence. Hence, it shows the role of the dominant national identity the state bases its sovereignty on and that can change through history, and the identity of the refugee groups constructed in different ways by the host nation-state in explaining the differences in state policies.
Bağlamda ikilik: Türkiye'de çifte vatandaşlığa çok katmanlı yaklaşım
The citizenship institution of today is marked by a steady trend towards states' broader acceptance of dual citizenship. This rapid spread of membership in more than one polity raises numerous questions concerning migrants' rights and obligations, participation and identity. Against geographical and contextual boundaries in the dual citizenship literature, this study explores the institution of dual citizenship through an alteration in the setting and framework. Employing the case of Turkey from the global south, this research assesses the impacts of dual citizenship on the traditional notion of citizenship through the utilization of Kymlicka and Norman's (2000) citizenship dimensions, which include formal status, activity and identity. For a comprehensive analysis, the triadic setting of the research incorporates all the relevant actors of international migration with Turkey as the host state, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan as the major sending countries to Turkey, and finally, the international migrants in Turkey's immigration space. Based on the perceptions and practices of sending and host states and migrants, first, dual citizenship leads to only a partial paralysis of traditional citizenship and second, it is not perceived affect integration. These two contributions pave the way for a third and more significant contribution to the literature on dual citizenship. Sesqui citizenship, standing for "one and a half citizenship" to imply the "less than wholeness" of this status, highlights the asymmetrical, unbalanced weight of citizenship dimensions through the perspectives of migrants, sending states and host states. Sesqui citizenship not only reveals the actors' unsymmetrical relationship with various citizenship dimensions, but also describes the asymmetry between the three actors' positions concerning dual citizenship. To conclude, sesqui citizenship presents a further differentiation of the citizenship conception in a setting different from the typical dual citizenship research context.