Başak Yavçan

COVID-19 salgınının tüm dünya nüfusu üzerinde, en çok da sığınmacıların da içinde olduğu hassas topluluklara büyük olumsuz etkileri olmuştur. Bunun başlıca sebepleri arasında pandeminin sığınmacıların yaşadıkları ülkelerin ekonomileri üzerinde yarattığı ağır yük ve sığınmacıların hareketliliğine yönelik getirilen kısıtlamalar sayılabilir (OCHA, 2020). Bir yandan ev sahibi ülkeler üzerindeki ekonomik baskılar en çok insani yardıma muhtaç veya gayri resmi olarak çalışan sığınmacılar, mülteciler ve düzensiz göçmenler üzerinde kendini gösterirken, bir yandan da çoğu mülteci Yunanistan gibi geçiş ülkelerindeki kalabalık kamplarda zorlu koşullarda mahsur kalmış, sığınmak istedikleri ülkelere ulaşmış olsalar bile bürokratik süreçlerdeki yavaşlık sebebiyle birçok hizmete erişimleri kısıtlanmıştır. Türkiye’deki sığınmacılar, mülteciler, düzensiz göçmenler ve diğer kategorilerdeki uluslararası olarak yerlerinden edilmiş insanlar dikkate alındığında, bu topluluklar özelinde pandemi sürecinde enfekte oranlarını belirten istatistikler bilinmemekle birlikte, pek çok kuruluş gerçekleştirdikleri ihtiyaç analizleri ve saha çalışmaları ile COVID-19 salgınının sığınmacılar, mülteciler ve diğer yerinden edilmiş topluluklar üzerinde çok boyutlu olumsuz etkilerini ortaya koymuştur (EPIM, 2020). Bu yazı, pandeminin bu toplulukların sağlık hizmetlerine/hijyen olanaklarına, temel ihtiyaçlara, eğitime, barınmaya ve geçim kaynaklarına olan erişimleri ana başlıklarında etkisini inceleyecek ve bu zorluklara karşı yerel, ulusal ve uluslararası düzeyde verilen tepkiyi değerlendirecektir.

Integration policy has been shown to have implications beyond acculturation and adaptation of refugees to the host society, extending to social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. While most studies focus on state-centred structural or ideological variables in explaining integration policy across countries, variation between local-level policy practices illustrate there is more to integration policy than national level-factors. Following the literature on the local turn in integration studies, the proposed study aims to look beyond the national level explanations and common accounts for local level variation, such as income level or ideological orientation. Instead, less investigated factors are identified based on two district municipalities of Istanbul (Sultanbeyli and Şişli) in an attempt to illustrate the multi-level character of their similar immigrant integration policies. Upon discussing the national and local policy contexts for refugee integration, policy processes of these two distinct municipalities will be unpacked to find what they have in common, using a 'most different systems' comparative design. Based on in-depth interviews with local-level policy actors, this study unveils potential reasons for their highly inclusive integration policy grounded in their multi-level networks. ARTICLE HISTORY

Integration policy has been shown to have implications beyond acculturation and adaptation of refugees to the host society, extending to social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. While most studies focus on state-centred structural or ideological variables in explaining integration policy across countries, variation between local-level policy practices illustrate there is more to integration policy than national level-factors. Following the literature on the local turn in integration studies, the proposed study aims to look beyond the national level explanations and common accounts for local level variation, such as income level or ideological orientation. Instead, less investigated factors are identified based on two district municipalities of Istanbul (Sultanbeyli and Şişli) in an attempt to illustrate the multi-level character of their similar immigrant integration policies. Upon discussing the national and local policy contexts for refugee integration, policy processes of these two distinct municipalities will be unpacked to find what they have in common, using a ‘most different systems’ comparative design. Based on in-depth interviews with local-level policy actors, this study unveils potential reasons for their highly inclusive integration policy grounded in their multi-level networks.

Executive Summary
Departing from an intention of refinement of the concept of radicalization by placing women in this process, this research project aimed at exploring the possibility of building a gender sensitive approach for countering and preventing violent extremism (C/PVE), as an alternative and complement to “malestream” efforts that have dominated the field and practice. Aware of the importance and complementary role of a civilian, gender-sensitive and long-term perspective that will target the rehabilitation of society and women, and given the gaps in the literature on the issue area, the major aim of the research was to probe the role of civil society, mainly women’s and humanitarian NGOs in building and implementing effective CVE and PVE strategies. Following an extensive desk review of the related literatures and having identified important civil society and community actors in the issue area, 80 in-depth interviews were conducted in eight different provinces across Turkey, namely, Ankara, Istanbul, Gaziantep, Kilis, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Adana and Antakya. The actors identified as points of interest included academics, both faith-based and secular humanitarian aid NGOs, religious networks, lawyers and bar associations, community leaders, directly affected women, local political party affiliates (both opposition and government party), and religious leaders. The interviews indicate that NGOs and individuals have not only different definitions of radicalization but they also have different evaluations of it. Despite an interest and understanding regarding the importance of the issue, most civil society organizations lacked a clear strategy to deal with cases of radicalization. As outlined and discussed in the major findings of our report, women from Turkey, reflecting the global phenomenon, assumed varying roles as sympathizers, perpetrators, possible preventers, rehabilitators and victims in their relationship to radicalization. Any strategy has to take the complexity of these roles and motivations into account in order to formulate the much-needed gender-sensitive, inclusive approach to CVE and PVE. Throughout our interviews, we have also explored the main push and pull factors and enablers outlined in the literature in an attempt to inform effective CVE and PVE strategies. The findings underlined the importance of Economic/ Structural Factors, namely the material conditions of the individual or the community not as a sole motivator but mostly in play in conjunction with other Ideological (heavily for women sympathizers) and Psychological Factors. These findings have important implications for women playing different roles throughout the process be it sympathizers or preventers. Regarding the role of civil society in CVE and PVE, NGOs have the potential to be of great use not only in terms of coming up with a counternarrative strategy and disseminating it as a part of broader national CVE strategy, but also in terms of supporting prevention efforts with the activities and educational as well as psychological counselling services they provided and with case collection in the field. This is especially the case for NGO’s concentrating on refugees, a population particularly vulnerable due to the exposure of a multitude of push and pull factors. Considering their expertise and skilled human resource, through collaboration with women’s and faith based NGOs, they carry the potential to be important actors in CVE and PVE efforts. In terms of building a counter narrative, considering the strong role of ideology as a motivator as supported by our interviews, faith based NGOs converged on the necessity of offering such a narrative from Islam itself with reference to Qur’anic verses and hadith that would challenge and refute the ISIS propaganda along with examples of peaceful conduct, tolerance, respect to other religious beliefs and practices, plurality, rejection of racial superiority, importance of the protection of innocent, elder and women in conflictual situations and love from the life of Prophet Mohammad and his companions, or sahabah. Here, an all-inclusive approach regarding different social classes and sectarian groups of society assumes great importance. This is of utmost significance for filling the information gap regarding religiously motivated radicalization and organizations that resort to violent extremism in the name of Islam.

Many papers studying mediation in conflict resolution focuses on mediator characteristics as unbiased vs. biased. Some emphasize the necessity of unbiasedness, while others argue that only biased mediators can play an effective role. The opposite views in the literature stems from the nature of conflicts in question and the differences in the (un)biasedness definition. This paper investigates the need for a mediator and the role of mediator characteristics by employing the tools of game theory in a framework where the strategic interaction of two disputing parties have an impact on different issues at stake which involve conflicting or common interests. The dispute arises due to each party’s incomplete information about the levels of importance privately attributed to these issues by the other. A better-informed mediator can reveal this information to enhance the chances of cooperation through costless communication, which is modeled by a cheap talk game. Our analysis suggests that for the mediator to be truthful and credible in equilibrium, she should (i) care about the outcome of the interaction, (ii) not prefer one outcome to the other by a large margin, (iii) be unbiased in the sense that she prefers mutual disagreement to the one where one side abuses the other. We also find that (un)biasedness does not matter when the mediator imposes costly carrot-stick strategies such as sanctions or incentives. We probe the plausibility of the hypotheses generated by the model with conflict resolution cases.

In this study we investigate the state of freedom of press in Turkey since 2013, with reference to legal conditions regulating Turkish press and media's dependency to the state.  Bringing in the liberal theoretical perspective into the debate of press freedom, in addition to compiling data on various forms of intervention to media, this report brings about a new framework, in order to question why and how the pressure on a free press manifests itself as a threat to individual liberties. In doing this, we borrow from the literature on ‘defective democracies’ with a focus on their authoritarian practices leading to a problematic media-government relationship in the presence of free elections. At this point, in addition to the legal framework, the economic dependencies occurring among the state and non-state actors are brought into the scope of this analysis. The purpose of this endeavor is to reveal whether or not the free speech space is narrowed down by the government via the instrumentalization of this dependency.

In this chapter, we examine how the Turkish parliamentary system has changed due to its European Union (EU) candidacy, taking cues from extant scholarship on normative and rational institutionalist theories. Using EU treaty documents, we construct an ideal definition for European parliamentarism as a benchmark and explore areas of misfit for the periods of 1999–2005 and 2005–2010. Our process tracing of European Commission (EC) Progress Reports, European Parliament (EP) resolutions, transposition of EU laws, committee work and reports illustrate little actual transformation of the Turkish parliament, but some areas of absorption and accommodation, evidencing democratic conditionality triggering soft institutional change.

Many papers studying mediation in conflict resolution focuses on mediator characteristics as unbiased vs. biased. Some emphasize the necessity of unbiasedness, while others argue that only biased mediators can play an effective role. The opposite views in the literature stems from the nature of conflicts in question and the differences in the (un)biasedness definition. This paper investigates the need for a mediator and the role of mediator characteristics by employing the tools of game theory in a framework where the strategic interaction of two disputing parties have an impact on different issues at stake which involve conflicting or common interests. The dispute arises due to each party’s incomplete information about the levels of importance privately attributed to these issues by the other. A better-informed mediator can reveal this information to enhance the chances of cooperation through costless communication, which is modeled by a cheap talk game. Our analysis suggests that for the mediator to be truthful and credible in equilibrium, she should (i) care about the outcome of the interaction, (ii) not prefer one outcome to the other by a large margin, (iii) be unbiased in the sense that she prefers mutual disagreement to the one where one side abuses the other. We also find that (un)biasedness does not matter when the mediator imposes costly carrot-stick strategies such as sanctions or incentives. We probe the plausibility of the hypotheses generated by the model with conflict resolution cases.