Understanding of the economic processes shaping regional economies is in a constant state of change. These processes are important to understand for policy making as governments seek to improve the economic well-being of citizens. Existing empirical research in this field has focussed on regions in economically advanced and technologically innovative economies. As a consequence, the broader picture of the dynamics of regional development in less developed countries, particularly its social and political origins and the overall changes in regional inequality, have remained elusive and less clear. The purpose of this thesis has been to develop an understanding of the local and regional dynamics of economic development in the context of the transitioning and emerging economy of Turkey. The approach has been to unpack a series of local and regional development theories and, from the drivers identified, to develop an econometric model calibrated for the Turkish context using available and appropriate proxy measures. Document analysis supported by interviews with groups of policy makers has been intertwined with the results of the model. The results of the study explain that implications of the current local and regional economic development theories are a Curate’s Egg – good in parts – because these theories are only partially relevant in the Turkish context.

The major motivation behind this thesis comes from an interest in the processes of depoliticisation and re-politicisation in economic management. The focus on the interaction between the national state and the global social relations positions the main problematic of the thesis within critical international political economy (IPE). This interaction is investigated in the context of the specific case study of Turkey. Given the fact that the existent literature on depoliticisation largely builds on the experiences of the advanced capitalist states and their managers, the thesis aims to contribute to this body of literature and assess the applicability of the conceptual framework in a different domestic political setting. On the other hand it aims to build on and contribute to the critiques of the existent literature on Turkey in the sense that the latter is often portrayed within an exceptional outlook and treated as a stand-alone case. The second chapter provides a critical overview of the literature on the conceptualisation of state and social relations in Turkey. The third chapter reviews the place of the state and the political and defines (de)politicisation not only as a governing strategy of the state managers to manage capitalist social relations but also in broader terms; as open-ended process in so far as its effects extend beyond the governmental realm. Chapter four proceeds to demonstrate the applicability of such a framework in the Turkish case through an evaluation of governing tactics and strategies in the post-WWII context. The subsequent three chapters explore the evolution of crisis and restructuring of social relations for the periods 1994-2001, 2002-2005 and 2006-present in an attempt to investigate the effects of the governing strategy and process in material and perceptional terms.

This thesis examines the role and function translations played in Turkish history, especially within the framework of its Westernisation movement from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. A descriptive approach is adopted, aiming to identify cultural patterns which shape and reflect translational decisions and help to a better portrayal of the socio-cultural context of translation during the time span examined. To this end, the thesis seeks to describe in detail historical, political, literary and linguistic factors which have affected the translation activity. The main assumption of this thesis is that acculturation was used as the main strategy in translations from Western languages during the periods which were marked with an extensive translation activity, especially during the nineteenth century and the first decades of the Republican era. This acculturation strategy not only helped to enrich the target literary system, bringing new literary models (genres), new subject matter, developing the language and giving rise to a new Turkish literature, it also had an effect upon the broader socio-cultural polysystem, especially on the process of identity creation. The analysis of the social, political and cultural conditions and policies suggests that the status given both to the source and target cultures has been the main factor for the acculturation. As examined in the last part of the thesis, a shift of power relations in the Turkish context, especially after the 1980s, marked a new kind of an acculturation strategy and a certain movement of resistance. The thesis concludes that there is need to know more about different translation histories in order to learn more about the acculturation process and to move beyond a Eurocentric view, and an interdisciplinary approach should be taken for such research.

This thesis examines how the three Baltic countries constructed their internal and external sovereign statehood in the interwar period and the post Cold War era. Twice in one century, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were confronted with strongly divided multiethnic societies, requiring a bold and wide-ranging ethnics policy. In 1918 all three Baltic countries promised their minorities cultural autonomy. Whereas Estonian and Latvian politicians were deeply influenced by the theories of Karl Renner and Otto Bauer, the Lithuanians fell back on the historic Jewish self-government in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Many politicians were convinced that the principle of equality of nationalities was one of the cornerstones of the new international order, embodied by the League of Nations. The minority protection system of the League was, however, not established to serve humanitarian aims. It only sought to ensure international peace. This lack of a general minority protection system was one of many discussion points in the negotiations of the Estonian and Latvian minority declarations. Although Lithuania signed a much more detailed minority declaration, its internal political situation rapidly deteriorated. Estonia, on the other hand, established full cultural autonomy with corporations of public law. Although a wide-ranging school autonomy was already established in 1919, Latvia never established cultural self-government. The Second World War and the subsequent Soviet occupation led to the replacement of the small historically rooted minority groups by large groups of Russian-speaking settlers. The restoration in 1991 of the pre 1940 political community meant that these groups were deprived of political rights. In trying to cope with this situation, Estonia and Latvia focused much more on linguistic integration than on collective rights. Early attempts to pursue a decolonisation policy, as proposed by some leading Estonian and Latvian policymakers, were blocked by the ‘official Europe’ which followed a policy analogous to the League of Nations.