Relative transition of ngos during the protracted refugee situation in Turkey

This thesis aims to examine the characteristics of the relative transition observed in Non-Governmental Organizations - Refugees (NGO-Rs), towards organizations that provide more need-based services, as a result of their different levels of engagement with the Turkish Government. The thesis argues that the transition observed in the foundation principles of NGO-Rs is related to the government's preference to increase control mechanisms on the NGO-Rs for specific purposes in line with the developments in domestic and international politics. Also, it argues that NGO-Rs are amenable to political influence because of their inevitable institutional relations with governments. A special focus is placed on the founding principle and political engagement nexus as the basis of NGO-Rs' transition under the Justice and Development Party (JDP) government, especially following the mass migration of Syrian refugees to Turkey in 2011, due to an unexpected increase in the number and potency of NGO-Rs observed. The research collects data from sources through the literature based on the concepts of needs-based and rights-based approaches, as well as the concepts of Government Oriented NGOs (GONGO), Quasi-Governmental NGOs (QUANGO), and Party Affiliated NGOs (PANGO) to provide the theoretical framework of the thesis. In addition, it uses theory-driven content analysis as a research technique of institutional and media reports, interviews, websites, press conferences, legal documents, and other open sources of relevant political parties and NGOs to examine the relevant developments to track the direction of NGOs-R' transition over certain themes. The main argument of the thesis is the following: There has been a new power balance formation in the NGO-government nexus that causes a politically oriented and relative transition of NGO-Rs to more need-based organizations, and the existence of the former in the civic area depends on the approval of the latter party after the arrival of Syrian refugees in Turkey.