Avrupa Birliği'nde göçün güvenlikleştirilmesi: Türkiye'nin göç uygulamaları üzerindeki etkileri

The phenomenon of migration is a highly debated topic in international politics in recent years, rising in importance on the global agenda. This can be seen in the securitization of migration policies of the EU, who has sought to restrict migration and sharpen border controls since mid-70s. In this process Turkey is of vital importance, considered one of the main bridges for transit migration into the EU. Thus, the securitization of migration in the EU has been influencing the Turkish migration management. The developing research on securitization of migration draws the attention to how migration is administered/framed as a security issue. However, these works put the focus exclusively on the EU and pay little attention to how the securitization in the EU restructures third countries' migration policies. This thesis intends to fill this gap in literature and question whether migration is securitized or not in Turkey through exploring the Turkey's compliance with the EU migration policies in the context of securitization, and programs and discourses of political parties on migration. Because of its strategic geopolitical position (e.g. being one of the most important transit countries for irregular migrants and asylum seekers into Europe) and in relation to its candidacy status, Turkey provides a very suitable framework in order to depict how the EU expands the securitization process into third countries and how candidate countries (are obliged to) follow the EU's requirements and thereby replicating the same securitization process in their migration policies. In the thesis, 'securitization theory' of the Copenhagen School given that it has become a reference point in the literature on migration issue and the analytical framework of 'Europeanization' used to assess whether and how EU's securitized policies led to change in Turkey's migration policy.