NGO's as the link between state and society? Women's community centers in Southeastern Turkey
Author
Genel, Sema
Advisor
İçduygu, Ahmet
Date
2003Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
Civil society initiatives in Turkey are transforming from organizations based on
traditional commitments, religious ties, and other primordial forms of relations to
organizations based on universal values, which are shaped mainly by the claims of a
larger civil society on a global scale. These universal values are in close
interconnection with changes taking place at the local level, exerting an influence on
particularistic values. This results in flows of interaction between global civil society
and grassroots initiatives. In this sense, civil society organizations at the national
level play a crucial role in the provision of the link between the global and the local
within a given nation-state. However, values promoted at the national level, shaped
mainly by politics of the nation-state, can be in sharp contradiction to those of a
universalist and equally particularistic character.
This situation is currently prevalent in Turkey with respect to the discussions on the
crisis of democracy in the country. Civil society organizations, represented mainly
by vakıfs and derneks as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), are trying to bring
closer together the national practice of democracy with the changes of the notion of
democracy at the global level, with reference to local particularities. It is the role of
the national NGOs in Turkey, then, to ease the tension with respect to the clash of
values between the state and the local community level as shaped by a global civil
society. On a global scale, NGOs have started filling the gap between the top-down
policies of the state and the bottom-up demands of local grassroots activity. The
three-tier relationship between the state, NGO, and the local community is becoming
increasingly complex due to the internal as well as external forces at play. It is this role of Turkish NGOs that is the focus of the current study. It is interesting
to observe the degree to which NGOs in Turkey are creating alternatives to
development and a move towards participatory democracy through women’s
empowerment centers within a larger state-sponsored development project in
Southeastern Turkey. Given the peculiarities of gender and minorities as essential
components of the case study, the thesis analyzes the role of Turkish NGOs in
creating the links between local and central authorities on the one hand, and the local
community on the other.