M.A. Theses
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Item China’s shifting position in the global climate change(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2023., 2022) Elmalı, Burak.; Eder, Mine, 1965- .Over the past two decades, China has emerged as a rising economic power with excessive amounts of carbon emissions that directly contribute to global climate change. Being a part of the international regime for global climate change regime, the country has also pursued a different set of policies to address the issue both domestically and internationally. This is also apparent in China’s vast investment landscape. The country has shown shifting patterns from a fossil-oriented investor to a more climate-friendly one. Also, it has proactively engaged in the regime's institutional platforms and revealed strong signals to cooperate on this global issue. This thesis aims to answer why China decided to move in such a direction and showed shifts in its investment allocation preferences by contextualizing foreign investments between 2005 and 2022. In contrast to the arguments based on liberal institutionalism and regime theory, China’s moves can be better attributed to realist considerations and strategic calculations within the scope of its incentive structure. This consists of economic gains and reputational benefits, both of which led China to increase its relative gains and reduce international pressures. From energy and transport investments to positioning in international negotiations, several cases are presented to demonstrate how China operationalizes its incentive structure. Combining climate change with some prominent international relations theories, this thesis contributes to an interest- based understanding of China’s climate policies and places them into a broader context of an incentive structure framework.Item On Hannah Arendt’s conception of judgment with regard to political action: an attempt at reconciling the perspectives of actor and spectator(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2014., 2014.) Menasse, Sophie.; Gambetti, Zeynep Ç.This thesis explores the relation between judgment and action in Arendt’s theory and comprises four main arguments. Firstly, I challenge the argument that there is a shift in Arendt’s theory of judgment from a future-‐oriented capacity of the actor in her early writings to a backward-‐looking faculty of the spectator in her late work. I advocate a more continuous reading by showing how the two theories are intertwined throughout her work and present in both phases, early and late. Secondly, I propose a way of understanding the relationship between judgment and action and between prospective and retrospective judgment. I show that we can find in Arendt many different fields of application of judgment that establish this link (i.e. prospective judgment of the actor, retrospective judgment of the spectator, retrospective judgment of the actor, future-‐oriented retrospective judgment of the spectator, judgment as action, judgment as a precondition for action, anticipated retrospective judgment of the actor). Thirdly, I emphasis the in-‐between location of judgment with regard to the level of rationality (in between subjectivity and objectivity, in between rationality and emotionality) and I explicate the relation of judgment to facts. Fourthly, I argue that this interpretation of Arendt’s theory of judgment may provide a useful theoretical framework for analysing current political events: it provides concepts that can prove helpful for trying to understand the occurrence of political change, of protest movements and new beginnings for it allows to conceptualize novelty and the consciousness formation processes related to political action.Item Rethinking the Kurdish movement: the role of the neighborhood assemblies in Diyarbala.r(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2013., 2013.) Tuncel, Deniz.; Eder, Mine,Based on the judicial violence of the Turkish state against the Kurds after 2009 and the attempts of the Kurdish political movement for the implementation of participatory politics at a local level since 2005, this thesis argues how the Kurds have been pushed out of legal order and rendered silenced by the Turkish judiciary, and how the Kurdish movement used the neighborhood assemblies to enable the Kurds to have the representation of their own voice. The case studies of the thesis are accordingly composed of the KCK trial and the neighborhood assemblies in Diyarbak1r. By exploring the process of the KCK trial, it argues that the Turkish judiciary as an institution of the sovereign power, through Schmitt, Agamben, Jakobs and Benjamin, decides the state of exception and makes "friend-enemy distinction" among its citizens concerning the security of the political and judicial order of the state. By observing the process of the decision-making processes from neighborhood to municipal level and, it asserts that the Democratic Autonomy is a practice of freedom of the Kurds and other subaltern communities, who were pushed out of legal order and mobilized outside the borders of that legal order, and the local assemblies founded by the Kurdish movement as the instruments of bottom-up democracy emerged as a space of struggle that were constituted by and constitutive of a community of struggle.Item Formation of a majoritarian democracy discourse in Turkey: an examination of the Democratic Party, 1946-1960(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2013., 2013.) Geliş, Naz.; Yılmaz, Hakan.This thesis aims to study the formation of a majoritarian democracy discourse in Turkish politics, which has become the main trend in Turkish political life starting with the Democratic Party (DP) that ruled the country from 1950 to 1960. The DP, also the first party that was elected with a competitive election, had a majoritarian approach to democracy, a view that has become the fundamental tendency in center-right politics in Turkey, and a legacy that the DP passed to its future successors. In testing this hypothesis, the democracy rhetoric of the DP is analyzed to shed light over its conceptualization of the party basis, meaning of democracy, elections, political control and political accountability, political and social opposition, civil institutions, definition of nation and individualism. This evaluation is presented through a discourse analysis of the parliamentary speeches of the leading figures of the DP. Finally, by briefly looking at the democratic view of the DP’s future successors (Justice Party, Motherland Party, True Path Party and Justice and Development Party), it is argued that the DP's majoritarian understanding of democracy became a legacy for the forthcoming center-right parties in Turkey.Item Media and democracy in Turkey: the 2011 Turkish national election coverage(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2013., 2013.) Bieber, Selina Denise.; Kaynak, M. Selcan.This thesis aims to examine the ability of the Turkish media to fulfil its democratic role for the Turkish public by case studying the 2011 national Turkish elections. Given the limited number of previous studies existing on Turkey, this thesis takes the notion of the press politics relationship, as put forward by Bennett, and economic pressures influencing the way in which the press functions to question whether the Turkish media effectively carries out a watchdog and messenger role. This study codes newspaper articles leading up to the elections to test the hypothesis that despite continued patterns of polarized parallelism, the media coverage will reinforce the AKP‟s consolidated governmental position. Split into two separate research question, the first research question discusses the coded article characteristics and keywords to draw out patterns and trends apparent in the coverage with a major focus on sources, main article subjects and handling of critical agenda issues. This lays the foundation for the second research question in which an in depth textual analysis is employed to determine the frames being put forward by publications when relaying two topics drawn from the data set - the Inan Kirac and Prime Minister Erdogan conflict and foreign press commentary - to make conclusions about the press politics relationship and position of the AKP in Turkey. Ultimately, this study argues that the press politics relationship is defined by the AKP‟s strong political position and media coverage serves to support this position by largely employing the frames put forward by the government to generate neutral or positive commentary, instead of offering critical coverage or diversity in reporting.Item Producing confrontational alterity: urban regeneration in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2013., 2013.) Mountfort Parker, Guy Alexander.; Kadirbeyoğlu, Zeynep.This thesis is concerned with large-scale urban regeneration, and its impact on the socialization and behaviour of the populations who suffer through its mechanisms of exclusion. The field research is focused on the Istanbul neighbourhood of Tarlabaşı, where a renewal project in the name of historical preservation has displaced approximately 3,000 residents. While the local community was already living on Turkish society's margins to varying degrees, the presence of the project under investigation is found to be necessitating or encouraging the performance of a confrontational form of alterity. Control mechanisms are rendered ineffective, and individual subjectivities distorted, by the visible confirmation of the status of the neighbourhood's residents in the eyes of official power, and by the examples of individuals temporarily reclaiming their rights to the city in the spaces of the project itself.Item Compliance and negotiation: the role of Turkish Diyanet in the production of Friday Khutbas(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2013., 2013.) Saçmalı, Muhammet Habib.; Arat, Yeşim,Friday khutbas are important instruments for reaching the public in Turkey, since approximately twenty million men could be addressed through the khutbas in the mosques every week. These khutbas are written by officials of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in the khutba committees in each city separately and distributed to imams to be delivered during Friday prayers. Due to the fact that these khutbas are religious texts and presented by the translators of a holy text in the eyes of the public, Friday khutbas have great influence on people through appealing to their hearts and minds. I consider the state and society to be the main actors that determine and shape the position, aim, discourse, and activities of the Diyanet. With the AK Parti government, for the first time in the history of Turkish Republic there has been a cleavage between the government and established state ideology in the understandings of religion and nationalism. Because of this, I take the AK Parti government as another agent within the state in this determination and shaping. The argument of this thesis is that the officials in the khutba committee, who seem to be the real actors writing Friday khutbas are mostly passive agents and employ self-censorship in the process of khutba writing to comply with the orders and demands of the state, government, and society and to abstain from confrontation and conflict with these actors. To elaborate my thesis, I shall also present the boundaries of various kinds of initiatives taken by the Diyanet officials in the process of khutba production to stand against the demands of these actors.Item Kurdish urban politics in the neoliberal era: cases of Diyarbakir and Van mobilized under BDP(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2012., 2012.) Sümer, Bilgesu; Kadirbeyoğlu, Zeynep.This thesis explores why urban politics became integral for Kurdish movement and how Kurdish movement mobilizes municipalities by examining the cases of Diyarbakir and Van whose municipalities are run by the political party of Kurdish movement, BDP. This study contextualizes the ongoing conflict with neoliberal transformations at the local government level in Turkey. Furthermore, it analyzes the extent to which the motivating factors and reasons for local politics are realized while mobilizing municipalities; given the structural constraints of the conflict and neoliberalism. To address this question, the life trajectories, experience and mobilization of the local actors and activists within their urban localities and local institutions are investigated through ethnography and in depth interviews. This research is an ethnographic fieldwork on an urban social movement with popular composition struggling to steer the wheel of urbanization which occurred ever so rapidly since the 1990s. It is based on my personal engagement and immersion into local activists spheres at the urban localities. It studies two urban localities: Diyarbakir and Van. The argument of the thesis is that local politics became central to Kurdish actors because the experience in mobilizing municipalities have given them the opportunity to address grievances – mostly developed due to the conflict. Meanwhile the project of Democratic Autonomy has given them a field in which how they want to mobilize local governments could be articulated and would be constituted. In this sense, Kurdish movement as a popular urban movement is situated against ill-effects of neoliberalism and is mindful of the conflict and would like to determine the collective consumption at the local and regional level through participatory mechanism to counter problems induced by both contexts.Item Contesting the terrain of the' Ambiguous': the struggle of gender migration and the issue of sex reassignment in Turkey(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2012., 2012.) Şahin, Deniz.; Candaş, Ayşen.This thesis aims to analyze the puzzle that the sex reassignment is an officially recognized right; however it is regulated in a sense that the applicant individual should confirm his/her adaptation to an archetypal transsexual within the scope of regulation. Through the reading of sex reassignment process, this study tries to understand how 'equal' citizenship in Turkey turns out to be exclusivist in the case of trans individuals. It argues that despite the legalization of sex re-assignment indicates an emancipatory attempt at the first instance, its practice reflects the lawmaker's "heteropatriarchal" rationale. In its scrutiny of legal framework of sex reassignment, this study maintains that word of law aims to dissolve ambiguities, and control the process in a way that it leaves the final say to the medical and legal experts. Furthermore, this study intends to show that trans individuals, in order to be allowed to undergo sex reassignment, endeavor and in a way are forced to persuade the officials that they fit into the frame drawn for the "transsexual" prototype; while they might not want to live within that frame completely. In addition to that, this thesis emphasizes the demand of the trans individuals for a better regulation that would be systematized in consideration, and in harmony with their own definitions and their own needs. Under the light of the, combination of legal and theoretical frameworks of the issue of sex reassignment with the fieldwork, this thesis suggests that a politics that would make sense, should ori the one hand recognize the right of reassignment, and on the other hand it should reveal and struggle against the heteronormative and heterosexist mental structure that enforces the individuals to fit into the predetermined patterns in the reassignment process.Item Cooperation or abjection? a Re-conceptualization of civil society beyond liberal values and dichotomies: the ‘Islam vs. homosexuality’ debate in Turkey(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2012., 2012.) Atuk, Sumru.; Gambetti, Zeynep Ç.The main argument of this study is that the liberal tradition which idealizes civil society as a sphere for the cultivation of democratic values, equality, pluralism and cooperation lacks explanatory value in terms of explaining the complex dynamics and internal contradictions of civil society. Supporting this argument, the debate which was initiated by the discriminatory declaration of the former Minister of Women and Family in Turkey - who announced that “homosexuality is a sickness” - and turned into an “Islam vs. homosexuality” debate with the intervention of Islamic civil society organizations (CSOs) and Muslim columnists, revealed that neither the identities nor the practices of civil society actors are pre-established and fixed. They rather are context and actor dependent. Another important factor upon which this debate shed light is the centrality of power relations to the civil society. As Foucault argues, there is no Power as such invested in predetermined institutions, groups or individuals; rather it exists in every aspect of the social. Thus, there is no essential boundary and opposition between the ruler (state) and the ruled (civil society) as liberal thinkers have depicted. Depending on the context, this boundary might get blurred and the actors of civil society might cooperate with the discriminatory state due to the fact that their subjectivities are affected by the same discursive formations. In this respect, the notion of civil society needs to be re-conceptualized in a way as to reveal relations of power and negotiability of subjectivities.|Keywords : Civil Society, Islam, Homosexuality, Bio-power, Discourse, Alliance.Item The impact of Turkey's natiolistic culture on Turkish foreign policymaking as observed in Turkey's relations with the central Asian Turkic Republics(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute of Social Sciences, 1995., 1995.) Mersin Alıcı, Didem.; Winrow, Gareth M.The emergence of independent Turkic states in former Soviet Central Asia and Azerbaijan has triggered off the latent Turkish nationalistic culture in Turkey. Indeed, it has been lying dormant since the last days of the Ottoman Empire. In this thesis, the existence of a latent undercurrent of extreme Turkish nationalism has been related to the nature of the particular model of the national identity building adopted by the Turkish intelligentsia. The incompatible combination of Anthony D. Smith's Western/civic-territorial and non-Western/ethnic models constituted the Turkish framework of the nation. In Smith's ethnic model of the nation, there is an overe mphasis on the mythical, historical, and linguistic traditions of the community. Genealogy assumes a special importance in this non-Western conception of the nation. The Western type, on the other hand, underlines the existence of a common civic-legal ideology, and an historic homeland. In this thesis, the mythical aspects of some of the important tools employed by the elites iil transforming the Ottoman Empire to the modern Turkish nation have been examined. These national myths have been decomposed by using Roland Barthes's theory on the nature of mythologies. Barthes conceived of myths as the outcome of the association between a signifier and a signified. He further emphasized the two-level semiological system underlying every mythical speech. The message conveyed by the myth operates on the plane of language- the immediate, surface meaning , and the plane of myth the distortion of the surface meaning. The combination of Barthes's views on mythologies with Smith's conception of the nation has demonstrated that the overreliance on mythical ele ments in the initial phase of the Turkish nation-b uilding process has unwittingly nourished a latent stream of pan-Turkism. The pan-Turkist attitude which used to have negative implications has, however, assumed a relatively positive connotation at present. Its claim for a political-geographical unity of all the Turkic peoples has been replaced by a yearning for Turkic cultural unity. The factors that have paved the way to the current popularization of cultural panTurkism will be analyzed with regard to Turkey's relations with the Turkic republics in post-Soviet Central Asia and Azerbaijan. The hypothesis that Turkey might be intending to establish and lead a prospective Turkic culture area has been studied in this context. It has been concluded that while the Ministries of Education and Culture tend to form their policies in a cultural pan-Turkist line, this would not seem to be the policy pursued by Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Item The impact of foreign nationals on state policy: refugees and asylum seekers, European Court of Human Rights case law and Turkish asylum law(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2012., 2012.) Yılmaz, Gökçen.; Kirişçi, Kemal,This thesis addresses the question of how an individual who is foreign and in a vulnerable position can affect state policy. Considering recent developments as preparation of a draft asylum law and increasing European Court of Human Rights judgments in refugees' cases against Turkey, this question attracts attention in context of Turkey. In line with this question, the aim of this thesis is to understand how an individual refugee, who is part of the most vulnerable group in the society in economic, political or social terms, can have impact on Turkish state asylum policy. This thesis is based on the central argument that ECtHR judgments have been effective in shaping the draft asylum law of Turkey. Since ECtHR procedures proceed through individual petition, the thesis also argues that even an individual refugee can have influence on state policy even if this effect is mediated by other actors. At this point, involvement of third parties into relation between individual refugee and state is of utmost significance. Moreover, ECtHR’s inclusion of individuals by virtue of right to individual petition is crucial as well. However, refugees' lack of action capacity restrains them from exploiting those legal opportunities. From this perspective; NGOs, activists, and lawyers come to front as mediators not only between state and individual but also between ECtHR and applicant refugee. Focus on ECtHR judgments as significant effects on draft asylum law brings about questioning refugees* access to the Court. Therefore, this thesis analyzes both the content of the draft law in comparison with judgments of the Court and the actual application process. Accordingly, major contribution of the thesis is analysis of Court judgments’ effect on domestic legislation from the lenses of individual level of analysis. In other words, ECtHR judgments' effect is analyzed as a mediated effect of individual on state outcome.Item Online streaming: a survey of online sharing and piracy(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2012., 2012.) Baran, Şebnem.; Kaynak, Selcan.Communication technologies have always sparked big debates about their possible effects on human life and the society. The excitement and the fear caused by the invention of television is one among many other such examples to this vivid interest. Today, similar discussions revolve around the widespread use of the internet and how the internet changed the world as we knew it while digitalization provides vast set of opportunities for online sharing. As online interactions and communications increased the dissemination of content and information, the borders between the processes of production and consumption became blurred. The control of culture industry over the copying and the dissemination of cultural products weakened. The on-going transformation instigated debates about the possibilities of theoretical and methodological re-conceptualization. Via the case study of the online streaming site WatchOnline.com, this thesis aims to survey, how the unauthorized circulation of the copyrighted content affect the existing perceptions of property and exchange, which, in turn, might give clues about the reactions to the present economic model. This research concludes that: 1-) Online streaming in this case does not oppose the existence of the culture industry for it is dependent on the culture industry’s production of the content and rather reacts to the monopolistic nature of the system; 2-) The site appears to incorporate both the elements of commercialization and sharing; and 3-) The practices of sharing contribute to the formation of community, which depicts solidarity, around the site.Item The Imaginary Ottoman: an examination of “Ottomanism” among the Islamic elites in today’s Turkey as an intellectual bridge between the local and the global(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Kabaağaç, Deniz.; Yılmaz, Hakan.The aim of this work was to shed light on the emergence of the idea of the Ottoman in modern Turkey and its importance in Turkish politics. It was argued that this new idea of the Ottoman was a representation of a social imaginary for the elites and for the leadership of Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), defining the position of Turkey in a globalized world. It was also argued that the emergence of the idea of the Ottoman and the properties ascribed to it are closely related to globalization. Within this framework, a research, focusing on depicting the critical properties of the Ottoman idea, how it is imagined and how the political stances of the AKP leadership relate to it, was conducted through a review of the written sources and by way of a review of the speeches given by AKP leaders since 2007. The research revealed that this new Ottoman, the imaginary Ottoman, is portrayed as a civilization with a different time and space apprehension than the West and as an Islamic imaginary that extends to the present time with an expanded conception of nation and motherland. The imaginary Ottoman, thus, is an attempt to secure a new place with a different identity in the global world; it is a link between the global and the local. The imaginary Ottoman includes elements from the real, historical Ottoman. However, it offers a new sense of the present time, derived from the deconstruction of the past. It is portrayed as a guide of action and identity for today and as a solution to the problems of the national imaginary in the age of globalization. The research showed us that the imaginary Ottoman is a product of the encounter of the newly emerging Islamic elite in Turkey with globalization. Thus, its emergence is directly related to globalization as a historical event. AKP leadership shares the same Ottoman imaginary. The AKP leadership tries to constitute and institute the Turkish society in the way the Ottoman is imagined and projects itself as the representative of the Ottoman imaginary. The Ottoman, in its imaginary form, is not static and transforms continuously, thanks to the creative capability of imagination. Accordingly, it helps the elites and the AKP leadership to redefine and reposition themselves in a globalizing world. It helps them to introduce new ideas, in order to justify their position by selectively using certain events from the vast reservoir of Ottoman history. It also helps the AKP leadership to adopt selfcontradictory positions in politics, such as being nationalist without being nationalist and being Islamist without being Islamist. The new habitus created through the imaginary Ottoman and the creative adaptation that this imaginary Ottoman facilitates provide an advantage to the AKP leadership in covering the political spectrum in Turkey and in answering the problems stemming from the Turkish national imaginary. The imaginary Ottoman is, therefore, not an aspiration to revive the historical Ottoman, which would have been a type of Ottomanism, but rather it represents the social as imagined by the Islamic elites and the AKP leadership.Item Investigative journalism in corporate media: reporters' perceptions of investigative journalism in Turkey(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Kaya, Ezgi.; Candaş, Ayşen.This study aims at analysing the practice of investigative journalism as a political instrument during the recent political developments in Turkey with a focus on the perceptions of the main agents of the newsmaking process, the reporters. The main point of focus was how the organizational restrictions necessitated by the politicaleconomic affiliations of news organizations influence the reporters’ practice of investigative journalism. A group of reporters were interviewed about their evaluations of the current practice of investigative journalism and the problems they perceive in its conduct in Turkey. The results indicate that the reporters are critical of the current conduct of investigative journalism in Turkey. They associate the problems they perceive with the corporate structure of the media in Turkey and the organizational procedures of newsmaking it requires. The reporters are critical of the influence of the politicaleconomic interests of media owners on news policy, which in turn leads to an instrumentalization of investigative journalism, reinforced by the uncritical use of leaked information. They complain of the editorial control in the selection of news and the auto-control in the process of making news. They argue that the routinization in the content of assigned stories and the restrictions of time spent on making news provide obstacles to making investigative news. They also believe that their professional skills are undermined because of low job security, the lack of work satisfaction and the undervaluing of reporters.Item The philosophical sources of contemporary politics of identity in G.W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: a critical reading of Charles Taylor and Jean Hyppolite(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Yıldırım, Mine.; Yılmaz, Hakan.This thesis addresses the question of the subject that is supposed to underline the prevalent understanding of “identity” in contemporary politics of identity and recognition. There are two aims of the thesis: First, is to trace back the philosophical sources of identity politics by opening its fundamental assumptions regarding the subject. And second, is to complicate these assumptions with the explication of the ways in which “difference” is articulated into the constitution of the subject in Hegel’s philosophy, particularly in his Phenomenology of Spirit. In the light of two divergent readings of the Hegelian subject, Charles Taylor’s and Jean Hyppolite’s, this thesis at explicating the dialectical and non-dialectical thinking of the constitution of the subject in the Phenomenology with regard to articulation of “difference”. The central argument of this thesis is that only one way of thinking the constitution of the subject in Hegel’s philosophy has come to dominate the contemporary political thinking on identity and difference: It is the dialectical thinking of the relation between self and other that results in the overcoming of contradiction between self and other in and through the dialectics, the “sublation” of difference in an ultimate synthesis that manifests itself in the self-realization and the unity of the subject, and finally in reducing the experience of subjectivity to the psychologically defined vicissitudes of the human subject. The major theoretical contribution of this thesis is that, in the light of Jean Hyppolite’s reading of the Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, it brings out the disregarded alternative interpretation of the differential structure underlying the constitution of the subject in Hegel’s philosophy – that puts forward a non-dialectical thinking of the relation between identity and difference. Thinking the relation between identity and difference non-dialectically is very important for thinking new forms of political subjectivity to avoid any essentialist, a-historicizing and reductionist view of difference; and rather to think difference in its absolute alterity and its irreducibility to the economy of the same.Item Neo-liberal transformation of agriculture in Turkey? a case study with olive producers in Ayvalık(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Aytemur, Nurcan.; Eder, Mine,Based on a close study of the olive sector in Turkey, this thesis demonstrated how neo-liberalism consists of contested political processes. Recognizing the uneven and multi-dimensional character of neo-liberalism as a political economic project, this thesis narrates the political contestations in the implementation of neo-liberalism in the olive sector by taking into consideration the experiences of Turkish olive producers of different scales in the Ayvalık region, which is Turkey's olive production and marketing center. Focusing on various neo-liberalization processes, such as privatization, commercialization, commodification and liberalization, and analyzing the positions and statements of a wide range of actors (olive producers, cooperatives, unions, politicians, etc.), this thesis discusses three politically contested issues in the olive sector in order to illustrate the extent to which neo-liberalization is occurring on the ground. First, the process of privatizing and commercializing the Olive and Olive Oil Cooperative - Tariş is looked at. Next, the contestations surrounding the Domestic Processing Regime (DIR) regulation in encouraging or discouraging the liberalization of the olive trade are explored. Last, the different modalities of commodification in the olive groves are taken into consideration based on the ongoing political contestations between the stakeholders in both the olive and mining sectors, as well between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the olive stakeholders. On each occasion, various stakeholders have systematically contested these neoliberalization pressures proving once again that neoliberal transformation in Turkey is far from homogenous and is highly contextual.Item Contemporary women's movement in Turkey: production of different knowledges(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Şeylan, Dilşah.; Akan, Murat.This thesis attempts to understand how experiences of women from diverse backgrounds and politicization processes shape the articulations of their positions on gender issues and constitute differences and similarities with other positions in the context of women‟s movement. For this aim, women activists in Turkey have been asked their decisions about the issues of family, sexual violence and headscarf that have been mainly problematized and politicized by different women movements all across the world. In order to get the opinions of the interviewees on family they were asked about the Prime Minister Erdoğan‟s call to give birth at least three children to Turkish women in a meeting that is arranged to celebrate World Women‟s Day. Secondly in order to obtain the viewpoints of women with regards to sexual violence the sexual harassment of a girl by a publicly known Islamist journalist Hüseyin Üzmez and the rape cases attempted against children and women by a state opera artist Şahin Öğüt were opened to discussion. Lastly as a deep seated problem having been instrumentalized by various political forces in Turkey quite a long time headscarf issue was discussed over the proclamation published by AK-DER, known as an Islamist woman organization, under the title “February 28 Should Not Last 1000 Years” by making a call for the removal of headscarf bans. Concerning these issue areas situated at the intersection of diverse political struggles specific experiences and knowledges of women coming from Islamist, Kurdish, Kemalist and feminist backgrounds are found out influential in articulating their positions as a result of the interviews. This supports the argument that there is not a separate, abstract and clearly demarcated identity as „woman‟ but it is spontaneously experienced along with other social attributes such as religion, ethnicity and ideology by women. Rejection of the possibility of such an isolated woman identity encouraged the author to criticize the exclusionary stance assumed by some feminists from time to time on the grounds of their own constructions of womanhood and feminism. Giving an idea about how differences are experienced within the women‟s movement in Turkey, the thesis finalizes its argument by making a call to embrace different production of knowledges by women and view them legitimate which would enhance the possibilities to do politics together between women in the context of women‟s movement.Item The Resistance of states system against nonstate violence: International cooperation to preserve state monopoly of force(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2010., 2010.) Kaya, Erdem.; Kut, Gün.With the combined impact of the phenomena of state failure and globalization in the post-Cold War period, violent nonstate actors (warlords, militias, terrorist organizations, insurgents, pirates, transnational criminal organizations) in general became transnational players. As the violent nonstate actors threatened the security of more states other than the targeted one(s), governments tended to work together to fight against them. Governments cooperated through diverse methods to re-establish and to preserve state monopoly on the use of violence against the challenge of these actors. Particularly since the late 1990s, states have been forming an international security regime against nonstate violence through mainly multilateral conventions and UN Security Council resolutions. Within the framework of this anti-nonstate violence security regime, cooperation among states is performed via the United Nations and other international, regional and sub-regional intergovernmental organizations. This study contends that the security regime-facilitated international cooperation works to preserve state monopoly of force, which is the main building-block of the existing states system. Therefore, states system has been developing a resistance against nonstate actors’ resurgence to posses the means of large-scale violence.Item Ethics of the political realm in Hannah Arendt's thought(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2010., 2010.) Gürer, Emre Çetin.; Gambetti, Zeynep Ç.This thesis seeks to explore the "unwritten" ethics of Hannah Arendt's political theory. It argues that even though Arendt is adamant in banishing morality from the political realm, her political theory consists of an ethical conduct that requires engaging in certain activities. This ethics differs from the morality that Arendt dismisses from politics in designating aproper way ofexisting in the world, rather than oertainine to certain normative universals. Arendt utilizes the - metaohor of "home" for designating such proper way of existing or dwelling in the world, but indicates that the main characteristics of the modern age permeate homelessness. The claim of this thesis is that Arendt's ethics is revealed in her discourse on properly responding to the homelessness of the modern age and make homely dwelling in the world possible. This response consists, most prominently, of the activity of thinking, since it is the primary activity modem homelessness directly invokes. But this activity has its own "dangers" and it is inadequate in providing a proper way of existing in the world. Political action and judgment have to follow thinking and establish one's relation with the political realm. The exercise of these three activities in their distinct relations to the political realm promises to establish home from within homelessness.