Civil Society and Health


Book Description

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) can make a vital contribution to public health and health systems but harnessing their potential is complex in a Europe where government-CSO relations vary so profoundly. This study is intended to outline some of the challenges and assist policy-makers in furthering their understanding of the part CSOs can play in tandem and alongside government. To this end it analyses existing evidence and draws on a set of seven thematic chapters and six mini case studies. They examine experiences from Austria Bosnia-Herzegovina Belgium Cyprus Finland Germany Malta the Netherlands Poland the Russian Federation Slovenia Turkey and the European Union and make use of a single assessment framework to understand the diverse contexts in which CSOs operate. The evidence shows that CSOs are ubiquitous varied and beneficial and the topics covered in this study reflect such diversity of aims and means: anti-tobacco advocacy food banks refugee health HIV/AIDS prevention and cure and social partnership. CSOs make a substantial contribution to public health and health systems with regards to policy development service delivery and governance. This includes evidence provision advocacy mobilization consensus building provision of medical services and of services related to the social determinants of health standard setting self-regulation and fostering social partnership. However in order to engage successfully with CSOs governments do need to make use of adequate tools and create contexts conducive to collaboration. To guide policy-makers working with CSOs through such complications and help avoid some potential pitfalls the book outlines a practical framework for such collaboration. This suggests identifying key CSOs in a given area; clarifying why there should be engagement with civil society; being realistic as to what CSOs can or will achieve; and an understanding of how CSOs can be helped to deliver.




Syrian Refugees in Turkey


Book Description

This book examines the changing demographic situation of Syrian refugees and the host community in Turkey, one of the major refugee hosting countries in the world, relying on a recent representative dataset. Conflicts and the resulting unrest force people to flee their countries and take refuge in foreign lands. Such refugee movements across the world have increased significantly in recent times. Turkey accounts for the greatest refugee population in the world today. This has drastically impacted the Turkish demographics, leading to different demographic situations in refugee communities in the country. This book presents an in-depth research on the impact of forced displacement on the demographic behaviour of Syrian refugees in Turkey in general, and more specifically the way transformed family structures, unregistered children, fertility behaviours and early marriages impacted their lives. The book also contributes to the existing knowledge and discourse on refugee integration by shedding light on their experiences related to access to labour market opportunities and education opportunities, wellbeing and mobility. It also helps in linking demography of Syrian community to the socio-economic challenges in Turkey by means of incorporating crucial demographic variables into the analysis. Offering valuable insights into various dimensions of life, this book has an interdisciplinary appeal and will thus be a key resource for academics and scholars of demography, refugee studies, migration studies and sociology. It will also be a valuable and unique reference work for people in governments, international agencies and non-governmental organizations.




TurkeyÕs Syrians: Today and Tomorrow


Book Description

Turkey's Syrians: Today and Tomorrow, edited by Deniz Eroğlu Utku, K. Onur Unutulmaz, Ibrahim Sirkeci is published by Transnational Press London. The book presents a selection of papers drawing on recent research on Syrian refugees in Turkey. Since the first arrival of Syrian refugees, the issue has sparked considerable national and international interest. Political discourses concentrated on state 'generosities' to provide protection to those coming from insecurities and possibilities to reduce 'burden of refugees' to receiving countries via international solidarity. While these concerns focus on effects of hosting refugees, what happens to refugees themselves, how they are affected by government policies and how they are perceived by host country people are questions yet to be answered. This book brings together a multidisciplinary set of contributions scrutinising the case of Syrian refugees in Turkey.




Turkey’s Syrian Refugees


Book Description

In this report, we provide an overview of the situation of refugees in Turkey and the difficulties that Turkey is facing in handling such a major crisis alongside of its Southern border.




Refugee Encounters at the Turkish-Syrian Border


Book Description

The Turkish-Syrian borderlands host almost half of the Syrian refugees, with an estimated 1.5 million people arriving in the area following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. This book investigates the ongoing negotiations of ethnicity, religion and state at the border, as refugees struggle to settle and to navigate their encounters with the Turkish state and with different sectarian groups. In particular, the book explores the situation in Antakya, the site of the ancient city of Antioch, the "cradle of civilizations", and now populated by diverse populations of Arab Alawites, Christians and Sunni-Turks. The book demonstrates that urban refugee encounters at the margins of the state reveal larger concerns that encompass state practices and regional politics. Overall, the book shows how and why displacement in the Middle East is intertwined with negotiations of identity, politics and state. Faced with an environment of everyday oppression, refugees negotiate their own urban space and "refugee" status, challenging, resisting and sometimes confirming sectarian boundaries. This book’s detailed analysis will be of interest to anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, historians, and Middle Eastern studies scholars who are working on questions of displacement, cultural boundaries and the politics of civil war in border regions.




Turkey-Syria Relations


Book Description

In 1997 Turkey and Syria were on the brink of war, engaged in a very real power struggle. Turkey was aligned with Syria's main enemy, Israel, and there were seemingly intractable differences on the issues of borders, the sharing of river waters and trans-border communities. In less than a decade, relations were transformed from enmity to amity. Border issues and water sharing quarrels were moving towards amicable settlement and the two states' policies toward the Kurdish issue converging. Turkey undertook to mediate the Syrian-Israeli conflict and close political and economic relations were developing rapidly between the two states. Yet, with the Syrian Uprising, relations returned to enmity. What explains these remarkable changes? Given that Turkey and Syria are two pivotal states in the region, what are the implications of this changing relationship for the international politics of the Middle East, the balance of power and regional stability? In this internationally collaborative work, co-edited by Raymond Hinnebusch and Özlem Tür, British, Syrian and Turkish scholars address these questions and examine the various domestic and international drivers in this key regional relationship. They discuss what theories best help us understand these seismic realignments and explore the impact of economic interdependence, identity changes and power balances on the evolving relationship between these two key regional powers.




Erdogan's Empire


Book Description

Gradually since 2003, Turkey's autocratic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to make Turkey a great power -- in the tradition of past Turkish leaders from the late Ottoman sultans to Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Here the leading authority Soner Cagaptay, author of The New Sultan -- the first biography of President Erdogan -- provides a masterful overview of the power politics in the Middle East and Turkey's place in it. Erdogan has picked an unorthodox model in the context of recent Turkish history, attempting to cast his country as a stand-alone Middle Eastern power. In doing so Turkey has broken ranks with its traditional Western allies, including the United States and has embraced an imperial-style foreign policy which has aimed to restore Turkey's Ottoman-era reach into the Arabian Middle East and the Balkans. Today, in addition to a domestic crackdown on dissent and journalistic freedoms, driven by Erdogan's style of governance, Turkey faces a hostile world. Ankara has nearly no friends left in the Middle East, and it faces a threat from resurgent historic adversaries: Russia and Iran. Furthermore, Turkey cannot rely on the unconditional support of its traditional Western allies. Can Erdogan deliver Turkey back to safety? What are the risks that lie ahead for him, and his country? How can Turkey truly become a great power, fulfilling a dream shared by many Turks, the sultans, Ataturk, and Erdogan himself?




Education of Syrian Refugee Children


Book Description

With four million Syrian refugees as of September 2015, there is urgent need to develop both short-term and long-term approaches to providing education for the children of this population. This report reviews Syrian refugee education for children in the three neighboring countries with the largest population of refugees—Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan—and analyzes four areas: access, management, society, and quality.




Turkey–West Relations


Book Description

Explains the trajectory of Turkish foreign policy behavior vis-...-vis the West, identifying the major factors behind intra-alliance opposition.




The Precarious Lives of Syrians


Book Description

Turkey now hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, more than 3.6 million of the 12.7 million displaced by the Syrian Civil War. Many of them are subject to an unpredictable temporary protection, forcing them to live under vulnerable and insecure conditions. The Precarious Lives of Syrians examines the three dimensions of the architecture of precarity: Syrian migrants' legal status, the spaces in which they live and work, and their movements within and outside Turkey. The difficulties they face include restricted access to education and healthcare, struggles to secure employment, language barriers, identity-based discrimination, and unlawful deportations. Feyzi Baban, Suzan Ilcan, and Kim Rygiel show that Syrians confront their precarious conditions by engaging in cultural production and community-building activities, and by undertaking perilous journeys to Europe, allowing them to claim spaces and citizenship while asserting their rights to belong, to stay, and to escape. The authors draw on migration policies, legal and scholarly materials, and five years of extensive field research with local, national, and international humanitarian organizations, and with Syrians from all walks of life. The Precarious Lives of Syrians offers a thoughtful and compelling analysis of migration precarity in our contemporary context.