Turkey The Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—elected president in August 2014—are undermining the gains of the past decade with steps that erode human rights and the rule of law in Turkey. In the wake of the mass protests in the summer of 2013 that began in Istanbul and spread to other cities, the government continued a policy of controlling media and the Internet and clamping down on critics. Corruption allegations in December 2013 implicating the government, with Istan- bul prosecutors ordering scores of arrests in December, were
Turkey The environment for human rights in Turkey deteriorated in 2015 with the break- down of the Kurdish peace process, a sharp escalation of violence in the south- east, and a crackdown on media and political opponents of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). There were two general elections in 2015. In the June 7 election, the AKP lost its overall majority polling at 41 percent, while the left-leaning pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) polled 13 percent, for the first time passing the 10 per- cent threshold for entering parliament. Failure
271 SIXTEEN Public policy education in Turkey Mete Yıldız and Cenay Babaoğlu Introduction Complementary to public policy research, the teaching of the subject in its modern sense began in the US in the 1960s (Allison, 2006, p 64; Mead, 2013, p 389; Vesely and Zelinkova, 2015, p 51). Public policy research and teaching became transnational by gradually diffusing into other countries with the help of international organisations and think tanks (McGann, 2007, p 67) and other agents of change and transfer. Sanabria-Pulido et al (2016), in their study, emphasise
This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the state of policy analysis in Turkey for an international audience. Noting Turkey’s traditionally strong, highly centralised state, the book documents the evolution of policy analysis in the country, providing an in-depth review of the context, constraints, and dominant modes of policy analysis performed by both state and non-state actors.
The book examines the role of committees, experts, international actors, bureaucrats as well as public opinion in shaping policy analysis in the country through their varying ideas, interests and resources. In doing so, it presents the complex decision-making mechanisms that vary significantly among policy-making actors and institutions, documenting the key, yet unexamined, aspects of policy analysis in Turkey.
It will be a valuable resource for those studying policy analysis within Turkey and as a comparison with other volumes in the International Library of Policy Analysis Series.
Drawing on the words and stories of queer Turkish activists, this book aims to unravel the complexities of queer lives in Turkey. In doing so, it challenges dominant conceptualizations of the queer Turkish experience within critical security discourses.
The book argues that while queer Turks are subjected to ceaseless forms of insecurity in their governance, opportunities for emancipatory resistance have emerged alongside these abuses. It identifies the ways in which the state, the family, Turkish Islam and other socially-mediated processes and agencies can expose or protect queers from violence in the Turkish community.
297 FOURTEEN Ageing in turkey: the Peter Pan syndrome? Özgür Arun introduction The story of the legendary character Peter Pan living in Neverland begins with such words, ‘All children, except one, grow up’ (Barrie, 1911, p 3). J.M. Barrie’s character Peter Pan is a child who will never grow up. This legendary story promulgated the myth that, while it was the fate of all children to grow old, this was not the case with Peter Pan. In reality, the children of Turkey today will be part of the future demographic trend towards rapid population ageing. Turkey is
183 ELEVEN Political parties and public policy in Turkey* Selim Erdem Aytaç Introduction The prominent political theorist Robert A. Dahl (1971, p 1) emphasised ‘the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens’ as a key characteristic of democratic governance. Simply put, a responsive government is a government that is attentive to, and influenced by, the voice of the people (Sartori, 1976). In the specific context of policy responsiveness, a government is responsive if there is a high level of congruence between the
255 FIFTEEN Public policy and media in Turkey Başak Yavçan and Hakan Övünç Ongur1 Introduction There is a growing literature on the relationship between mass media and policy- making, and how mass media is crucial in terms of drawing and keeping public attention on policy processes. As Strömberg (2001, p 653) puts it, ‘the logic why mass media should influence policy is simple. If more informed voters receive favourable policies, then mass media should matter because they provide most of the information people use in voting.’ However, if we consider
215 thirteen Extreme forms of child labour in Turkey Serdar M. Degirmencioglu, Hakan Acar and Yüksel Baykara Acar Introduction The literature on working children or children who are forced to work in Turkey is growing in terms of both size and coverage. The literature now covers children who work on the streets in urban areas, children who collect waste material that can be recycled from rubbish bins and children who accompany their parents to the cotton fields in the south of the country (Atauz, 1990; Acar and Baykara Acar, 2007). Most published work
123 EIGHT Beyond developmentalism: the role of experts and expertise in Turkey’s environmental policy disputes Gökhan Orhan Introduction The exact role of experts in policy analysis is an under-investigated area in Turkey, because there has been a limited use of policy analysis techniques in policy- making and implementation. Although experts do play a certain role in giving policy advice to policy-makers, it is rather challenging to generalise the patterns of policy advice in Turkey. The character of expert involvement varies according to the policy area
