An examination of the development of citizenship in Turkey according to constitutional periods with reference to Thomas Humphrey Marshall's theoretical perspective

Since its emergence in ancient Greece, citizenship has had a direct relationship with rights. Citizenship is a person's status before the state, which also defines her rights and duties. In other words, it is a legal bond established between the state and the individual. In this sense, Thomas Humphrey Marshall develops the theory of citizenship as an evolutionary group of consecutive rights and examines these rights with reference to the historical development of legal rights in England. Even though Marshall's theory can be regarded as not a fully comprehensive theory, his novel approach has been oft-cited by a great number of scholars working on rights-based citizenship theory. In this thesis, the historical development of the concept of citizenship and the citizenship rights in Turkey are examined with reference to Marshall's aforementioned theoretical structure. In other words, this study aims to examine the relationship between citizenship and rights as one of the two essential concepts of political science on the basis of the historical development of citizenship in Turkey since transition to constitutional order. To that end, firstly, the historical development of the concept of citizenship and then Marshall's theory on the relationship between citizenship and rights are examined. Finally, the development of citizenship in Turkey is analysed within the framework of Marshall's theory. Methodologically, the development of citizenship in Turkey with reference to Marshall's theory is examined in this study by embracing a theoretical and descriptive method, with a case study oriented. Keywords: Thomas Humphrey Marshall, citizenship, rights, Turkey, constitutionalism