Ph.D. Theses
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Browsing Ph.D. Theses by Author "Eder, Mine,"
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Item Business associations and foreign policy: revisiting state-business relations in Turkey(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2013., 2013.) Atlı, Altay, 1974-; Eder, Mine,Economic considerations are increasingly playing a role in defining Turkey’s foreign policy, and as a result, non-state actors from the economic realm like the business associations as the institutional representatives of the private sector are emerging as key actors in the formulation and implementation of policy. This study deals with the question of whether the increasing activism of business associations in foreign policy issues represents a transformation of state-business relations in Turkey from a state corporatist mode with clientelistic tendencies and patronage relations towards more formal, institutionalized and participatory forms such as liberal corporatism. In order to illuminate this issue, the experience of three business associations (Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, Turkish Contractors’ Union, and Turkish Exporters’ Assembly) over the past three decades is analyzed by employing using a two-tiered principal-agent model, which positions the state as the principal and the business associations as the agents performing certain tasks on the state’s behalf and receiving incentives in return, within a historical institutional framework. The model has the dimensions of the interaction between the government and bureaucracy; the contract between the state and the business associations; autonomy of business associations; interaction between the administration and the constituency of business associations; and cooperation and competition between the business associations. Investigating the changes in these dimensions over time, this study discusses the development and limitations of state-business relations in Turkey. In this way, the study hopes to make a contribution to the literature on Turkish political economy and foreign policy.Item Constitutional courts during political upheavals :|the case of the Turkish Constitutional Court(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Demirtaş, Abdullah Erdem.; Eder, Mine,Constitutional courts operate at the intersection of law and politics. Their task is to defend the normative superiority of the constitution by reviewing the constitutionality of laws. In doing so, they engage with other political institutions such as political parties, legislatures and executives. In times of political upheaval, the nature of the relationship between constitutional courts and other governmental organs is contested. This provides an ideal situation to observe the political dynamics of constitutional judicial review. This study aims to understand how constitutional courts fare during political upheavals by examining the Turkish Constitutional Court over an extended period of time. The Turkish Constitutional Court is a crucial case because Turkey has undergone episodic political upheavals where constitutional norms have been contested by different governmental institutions. The methodology of this study can be described as constitutional ethnography, which involves a close examination of the socio-political context that underlies legal institutions and relations. To this end, I examined politically salient court cases, interviewed judges, reviewed newspaper articles; I also used various secondary sources. My research has determined that the Turkish Constitutional Court has adopted one of three strategies during episodes of political crises: judicial activism, deference and avoidance. Furthermore, I contend that the court strategy depends on the degree of fragmentation of political power, the profiles of sitting justices, and extra-judicial alliances that the court can leverage against challengers.Item Encounters with neoliberal globalization :|South Korea and Turkey in comparative perspective(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2021., 2021.) Kim, Thergill.; Eder, Mine,Despite being on different development paths, South Korea and Turkey faced economic crises triggered by external shocks and unsustainable industrial policies in the late 1970s. The economic policies of both countries started to converge into neoliberalism around 1980, under international financial institutions and military regimes; however, neoliberal transformation varied in the two countries over time. This thesis investigates why such divergence occurred, even though both countries launched similar neoliberal programs at the same time. This thesis aims to examine economic policymaking and to compare the interaction among political leaders, economic policymakers, and business circles of the two countries in the 1980s and early 1990s. Through comparative historical analysis, it draws from the development state literature and reframes the discussion by focusing on how pre-crisis conditions were worse for Turkey than for South Korea and how South Korea’s state capacity was different from Turkey’s during its neoliberal transformation. The neoliberal reforms continued in both countries after a full-scale democratization in 1987. Nevertheless, more than a decade of neoliberalization remained incomplete by the early 1990s, and South Korea and Turkey tended to regress to pre-reform development paths, handing these heavy tasks over to the next governments. In conclusion, this thesis asserts the importance of state capacity in neoliberal reforms and finds the changeability of the developmental state and its internal political-institutional dynamics through Korea’s case. Additionally, it examines the domestic and international factors that influenced state capacity and defines the limitations in the analysis of neoliberalization based on the developmental state theory.Item Rethinking the political economy of contemporary water struggles in Turkey from a comparative perspective :|space, structures and agency(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2016., 2016.) Kavak, Sinem.; Eder, Mine,; Bastard, Benoit.This dissertation examines role of political economy in contemporary agrarian mobilizations. By focusing on recent water struggles in Turkey against the run-ofthe- river hydropower plants (SHPs); the research digs into the societal and economic factors that enable or inhibit the emergence of strong mobilizations through a comparison of reactions against SHP projects in four localities of Eastern Black Sea region. The main logic behind the cross comparison is to find out if there is a relationship between the forms of rural livelihoods; mostly defined in terms of production, marketing, place in the general economic system, migration and viability of space; and political mobilization against SHP construction combined with the other possible reasons leading to an unrest and contention. The research revealed that prior transformation of the rural spaces affects the ways, means and discourses of the local struggles. I argue that spatio-economic transformation of the localities that unevenly transform rural settings in terms of production and consumption activities have impact on the patterns, discourses and agency in the contemporary ‘rural’ mobilizations. Therefore, the dissertation advocates for a need for theorization of contemporary agrarian mobilization from this perspective by putting the emphasis on the livelihood transformations, transformation and viability of space, commercialization of production and differentiation within the peasantry and the agency.Item The status of Palestine in the United Nations and its implications for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict(Thesis (Ph.D.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Gümüş, Abdurrahman.; Eder, Mine,The Palestinian application for UN membership in 2011 started the debates over the nature of statehood and reactivated the initiatives in different bodies of the UN. This dissertation focuses on the role of the UN in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and highlights the legal and political aspects of statehood by applying the theoretical discussions to the Palestinian case. The political process of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on the developments at different levels, namely the ground level, the UN level, and interactions between these levels including the negotiations so this mechanism can be defined as a complex two-level game for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whereas the unilateral actions of Israel and the power imbalance in favor of Israel create an important advantage for the Israeli actors at the ground level, the legitimizing role of the anti-Israeli resolutions for the Palestinian claims and the high amount of support for the Palestinians in the international arena provide some assets for the Palestinian actors. The ground level witnessed a struggle over sovereignty while the UN level created a struggle over international legitimacy. Five General Assembly votes and three Security Council votes in terms of the policies and voting behaviors of the prominent actors and representative cases were analyzed in this dissertation. As a result, the UN process strengthened the hands of the Palestinians and contributed to the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, it should be accomplished with the support of the external actors and favorable regional context for a comprehensive solution.Item Turkish-US security relations 1945-2003: a game-theoretical analysis of the institutional effect(Thesis (Ph.D.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2007., 2007.) Tuğtan, Mehmet Ali.; Eder, Mine,This study aims to test the relevance of the neo-institutionalist theory in Turkish-US security relations by using a game-theoretical model. If successful, such an undertaking would provide one with tested theoretical generalizations about the place of institutions (in our case, NATO) in Turkish-US security relations, imply policy-making alternatives to remedy the power asymmetry between the two actors, and help pinpoint problematic issues in the bilateral relationship. This study has looked at the salient issues in Turkish-US security relations from 1945 to 2003. Its key findings suggest that NATO as an institution moderates relative gains made by the parties, and this effect is independent from domestic or international structural changes. The power asymmetry between Turkey and US results in an uneven distribution of relative gains that is particularly evident in problematic issues like the Middle East, US military aid to Turkey, and the presence and activities of US forces in Turkey. The findings of this study suggest that further institutionalization would moderate the distribution of relative gains in both issues.