The Importance of the civil society road to democratic society in Turkey

ABSTRACT Civil society is a by product of the socio-economic experiences of the west and also a peculiar concept to the western world. This concept which was identified one on one with the "state" at its initial stages, has lived through a semantic shift and has started to be percieved as oppositionary to the "state". Civil society especially after the collapse of the Eastern Block in 1989 has started to be seen as a sine qua non of democracy. Researchers have not been able to face with civil society either in the Ottoman or the Republican eras though there were some indications of the existance of some of its dimensions. The idea of the formation of a civil society has started to draw supporters for the enhancement of our democracy in parellel to the recent developments. The formation of a civil society cannot be finalized only via the enactment of certain laws or the modification and the annulment of some legal codes overnight. In feet, eventhough the constitution of 1961 had provided a fertile ground for the emergence of a civil society in Turkey the end results were not as expected. Stemming from this example it can be concluded that the existance of a suitable political culture is more important than the existance of certain laws (legal frameworks). T.G. YÜKSEKÖ?RETİM PUL " HANTASYON MEH