Developing a scale of citizenship perceptions in terms of rights and duties in contemporary Turkey

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Sosyoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2008

Öğrenci: AYŞEGÜL FIĞLALI TAŞKIN

Danışman: HEDİYE SİBEL KALAYCIOĞLU

Özet:

This thesis approaches the concept of citizenship from the angle of citizens by focusing on the citizenship perception of the citizens in Turkey. It has been aimed to measure citizenship perceptions in terms of the balance between both total rights and duties, and also in terms of civil, political and social elements of citizenship. Liberal and civic republican conceptions of citizenship have been employed as the ideal-standard models against which it is attempted to measure the citizenship perceptions, because it is consensually agreed that the Turkish notion of citizenship is based on a civic republican understanding which emphasizes duties over rights. For this purpose a scale for citizenship rights and another one for citizenship duties have been developed on the basis of a questionnaire. Additionally, in order to measure people’s opinions concerning the possible effects of Turkey’s EU membership on citizenship issues a scale of “EU membership and citizenship” has been developed. In addition to the questionnaire study which was applied to unionized workers, employers, bureaucrats and retired military officers, focus group meetings and interviews were conducted. The results of the scale study revealed that all occupational groups shared a republican perception of citizenship as far as the total right and duty items are considered. However, in terms of political and social elements of citizenship, occupational groups displayed different perceptions. In terms of political elements, while workers, employers and bureaucrats emphasized the political rights, with respect to social elements workers assigned more weight to social rights. The EU membership and citizenship scale results indicated that all occupational groups shared a pro-EU perspective with respect to its effects on citizenship.