MiReKoc Seminar Series of Spring 2020 continues with Nihan Karagül’s presentation on ‘State Capacity and Migration Management: Implementation Practices of TRP and Rights Accession Deficiencies’. The presentation and discussion will take place on Wednesday, March 18th, 2020, at 12:00, in SOS143. Registration is required for participants not affiliated with Koç University to mirekoc@ku.edu.tr

Title: State Capacity and Migration Management: Implementation Practices of TRP and Rights Accession Deficiencies

Abstract: The legal framework of Temporary Protection Regulation enforced in Turkey approximates to the international standards of the refugee protection instruments in the world. However, the figures on the ground reveal the striking fact that only a highly constrained segment of the migrant population in Turkey are able to avail themselves of the already-recognized rights-set. Numerous academic and professional works with informative content gave way to recommending ends, and thereby, yielded in policy amendments. However, very few of them examined how these policies are de-facto implemented, and why they are implemented in that particular way. This is why this study focuses on the implementation practices of the Temporary Protection Regulation. To that end, field research is carried out in Gaziantep with the employees of the local and international NGOs working vis a vis the migrant population and the government officers. As a result, three implementation practices caused by state incapacity (with special regards to bureaucratic efficiency, and quality of public service provision) are identified: Arbitrary/inconsistent implementation, prolongation, and conditional implementation. By this way, their specific relevance to the rights accession deficits is discussed.

Short-bio: Nihan Karagül is a Ph.D. Student at the Department of Political Science at Sabanci University. Before her admission to the program, she completed her master’s degree at Middle East Technical University in Political Science and Public Administration Department. She wrote her Ms. Thesis on the rights accession deficits of the Syrian migrant population in Turkey by paying special emphasis on the politics of policy implementation processes. During her master’s, she engaged in MiReKoç as a visiting fellow student where she had an opportunity to expand the scale and scope her research. Previously, she worked in the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as an Information Management Officer in two different duty stations: Ankara and Gaziantep. There she undertook professional responsibilities in refugee and cross-border operations of Turkey and the United Nations by performing as the focal point. In 2014, she was an exchange student at the University of Bordeaux II, Bordeaux, France. In 2016, she is graduated from the Sociology Department at Middle East Technical University. Her research areas are international migration, migration management, nation-states, state capacity, bureaucracy.