The transformation of turkey's environment policies within the framework of sustainable development: The impact of European union and internaional environmental regimes

Environmental problems and the unlimited use of natural sources for the sake of industrialization and economic development have today reached a concerning point at global level which threaten all the livings and next generations as well. Environmental policies were first approached at international level during 1970s mainly by the initiatives of United Nations and also European Union's within the framework of debates on sustainable development. These initiatives which have been formulated under different cooperation mechanisms, have significantly affected the development of environment policies in Turkey. This dissertation aims to study the development of environmental policies in Turkey with the process of EU accession negotiations and also the international cooperation mechanism mainly framed by the United Nations. Despite the weakening EU accession conditionality, this study attempts to understand how the environmental policies have evolved in Turkey, in which areas harmonization with the EU acquis were successful and in which areas the harmonization remained limited. It also examines the impact of initiatives of the United Nations in terms of domestic policy change. The thesis benefits from the theoretical debates on "Europeanization" and "rational choice institutionalism" in explaining to what extend the international environmental regimes framed by the initiatives of European Union and United Nations have influenced the domestic policy change in Turkey's environmental policies.