This thesis examines the applicability of the concept of soft power in the Chinese context. After a brief discussion of the concept of &quot / soft power&quot / , which was coined by Joseph S. Nye Jr. in 1990, and also similar concepts developed in western academia, the Chinese understanding of soft power is investigated with reference to statements made by Chinese policy-makers and academics, Chinese soft power applications in Africa and the use of the Confucius Institutes as soft power tools. It is argued that although China pursues non-coercive policies to augment its power in the international arena, this power is not solely attained by the methods of soft power as suggested by Nye. Although the concept of &quot / sticky power&quot / , coined by Walter Russel Mead, and/or that of &quot / smart power&quot / , intorduced by Nye and Richard Armitage, can be beneficial in understanding the Chinese experience, the Chinese goal-oriented and empiric approach to attaining power differs in essence from the western understanding both in theory and practice.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the link between shame-proneness, guilt-proneness, attributional styles, and coping strategies, and then to determine which of these variables are significantly related to depressive symptomatology in the sample of Turkish undergraduates. Moreover, the association between shame-proneness, guilt-proneness and depressive symptomatology through attributional styles and coping strategies is examined. Four hundred undergraduates from different universities completed the Ways of Coping Inventory, Attribution Styles Questionnaire, Test of Self-Conscious Affect-3 and Beck Depression Inventory in addition to the questionnaire surveying sociodemografic variables. The findings of the analyses have revealed that shame- and guiltproneness have a significant effect on coping strategies, attributional styles, and depressive symptomatology. The attributional styles also have predictive effects on the use of coping strategies. However, contrary to the researcher&#039 / s predictions, no relationship between attributional styles and depressive symptomatology has been found. In order to test the mediation model, mediation analyses have been conducted and the results of the analyses have been tested by structural equation modeling, which have confirmed the mediation effect of problem-focused coping only between shame- and guilt-proneness and depressive symptomatology. In conclusion, shame- and guilt-proneness are the strongest predictors of depressive symptomatology and their significant effect on depressive symptoms are above and beyond the other variables. The findings of the present study have suggested that the analysis of shame-proneness, frequency, and duration of feelings of shame and related occasions are crucial in psychotherapy process. The results of the study have emphasized the importance of taking shame-proneness into account and dealing with it in the psychotherapy process.

This dissertation attempts to investigate the relationship between certain narrative strategies and meaning(s), and presents a narratological analysis of Golding&rsquo / s three novels. It primarily refers to the terminology offered by Genette and Rimmon-Kenan and, considering the mode of narration (voice) and the mode of focalization (mood), it tries to unearth narrative elements in narrative fiction. This dissertation argues that the implied author employs narrative agents and strategies of perspectivisation in order to affect, manipulate, determine or change the meaning(s), and that storytelling authority can be violated or balanced by monitority of perceiving. In The Inheritors, the implied author plays with shifting perspective to portray the other from within / in Pincher Martin, s/he explores temporality and timelessness to reveal post-mortem individual consciousness / unconsciousness, and in Free Fall, s/he produces a first-person retrospective narration where the protagonist deals with the act of story-telling and attempts to reconstruct his identity through manipulating subnarratives and perspectives.

ABSTRACT MEDIA, POLITICS AND SLANTED NEWS COVERAGE DURING THE ELECTION PERIODS &ndash / CASE STUDY OF NEWS ON AKP &Ccedil / AgLAYAN, Eda M.S. in Media and Cultural Studies Supervisor : Prof. Dr. RaSit KAYA May, 2010, 107 pages This thesis aims to study the attitude of media towards AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi - Justice and Development Party) during the 2002 and 2007 general legislative elections in Turkey. Three national newspapers were selected in the scope of analysis: H&uuml / rriyet, Sabah an Yeni Safak in two months period before 2002 General Elections and 2007 General Elections (September, 1- October, 31 2002, June, 1 &ndash / July, 21 2007). Media are assumed to have a defining role on the formation of opinions due to the fact that the events of the external world to our immediate experiences is continuously interpreted and disseminated through them. Under these considerations, it is frequently claimed that world of politics is one of the most effected institutions. So, during the election periods campaigns are designed and carried out to direct opinions by means of media. Main question of the thesis is whether national daily newspapers were favorable to AKP, both before 2002 general elections when it was elected as first political party and before 2007 general elections when it was the ruling party. AKP news coverage of the selected newspapers in the defined periods were examined through qualitative content analysis. Selected newspapers&rsquo / news slant are revealed by way of reading AKP news critically to determine their dominant tone, gauging how much space they occupied in the newspapers and considering attitudes of the newspapers towards other political parties. Keywords: Media, Liberal Media Theory, News Slant, Qualitative Content Analysis

Nowadays, almost all organizations use information technologies (IT) in some extent that they have gained many advantages from it. However, the wrong management of IT processes may cause big problems for organizations. It is first required to reach the quality to successfully govern IT and its processes. At this point, it is essential to have a quality maturity framework that organizations could use to follow a logical path in achieving quality. This thesis represents a study for determining the general quality requirements of a possible quality maturity framework for IT facilities in organizations. Many quality models, awards and frameworks will be discussed to determine those quality requirements and a possible leveling of the requirements will be also represented. Besides, a quality assessment survey will be performed in Turkish institutions regarding the quality requirements and the factors affecting them to determine the quality level of IT facilities in Turkish institutions.

This thesis analyzes the tax incentives and protection measures in the European Union and Turkey. The definition and classification of these measures in the form of tax expenditures will be stated in this study. EU&rsquo / s tax provisions in sources of the Acquis Communautaire will be described followed by the practice in the EU&rsquo / s major policy fields. The legal background and major policy implications of these tax policy measures in the framework of Turkey&rsquo / s tax laws will be explained followed by an evaluation of to what extent Turkey&rsquo / s tax expenditures are harmonized to the EU.

Main purpose of this thesis is to analyse the main determinants affecting innovation behaviour by utilizing the results of Technological Innovation Survey of Turkey for the periods 2004-2006 combined with the results of Annual Business Statistics Surveys conducted for the year 2003. The total number of the observations of the matched data of the two Surveys is 947. Main underlying reason for the time lag introduced between the two surveys is to be able to relate firm and sector characteristics to the innovation behaviour in following years. Logit model is established with three main dependent variables as firms doing product innovation, process innovation and either one of them. According to result of the analysis, four main areas are found to be promoting the innovation behaviour in firms. Firstly, as the firm size increases, the probability of engaging in innovation is found to be affected positively. Secondly, firms having foreign share also has more tendency for innovation. This result is surprising and disproof the initial assumption related with foreign share, since foreign investment is found to be a hindering factor in some previous studies in developing countries. Thirdly having intellectual property rights is positively related with innovation behaviour. Last positively affecting factor is engaging in R&amp / D, which is presumable. Three factors are found to be insignificant as Export Status, Import Penetration and Tariff Rate. The relationship between foreign trade and innovation behaviour could not be justified which is mainly due to lack of data reliability.

The aim of this thesis is to make policy recommendations for Turkey in order to facilitate innovative activities resulting in more patent applications in pharmaceutical industry through comparing her with the selected countries / USA, EU, Japan, India, China and Korea. The comparison is performed in terms of the patent, research and development (R&amp / D) expenditures and basic research. This study begins with firstly indicating the relationship between patents and innovation in sector basis. When it is looked at this relationship patents are the most necessary tool for pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, in the main part of the thesis the patents and innovations in pharmaceutical sector are analyzed mostly. However, this analysis is not done in all aspects but it is done in terms of research and development expenditures and basic research. Patent is mainly a result of research and development activities. Besides, basic research is also effective in making innovations and so in patent system. Because of these reasons, the relationship between patents and innovations in pharmaceutical industry are covered in terms of these two aspects-R&amp / D expenditures and basic v research-. These relationships are analyzed in country level. In this thesis, in order to see the right route for Turkey and give some advises to Turkish patent and innovation system especially in pharmaceutical industry Turkey is compared with USA, EU, Japan, China, India and Korea. The reason to take USA, EU and Japan is that, these countries are developed countries, the biggest patent offices in the world are in these countries and the number of patent applications is the highest in the offices of these countries. On the other hand, China, India and Korea are taken as subject to the comparison because these countries are developing countries like Turkey and the development levels of these countries are not too higher than Turkey. In this thesis, through comparing Turkey with the selected countries, some policy recommendations are done for Turkey and this thesis may open door to further studies on the patent and innovation system of Turkey especially in pharmaceutical industry.

This thesis aims to analyze the early modernization processes in the Ottoman Empire and Iran up to the end of their eventual constitutional revolutions of the early twentieth century in a comparative manner. In looking at the countries&rsquo / modernization processes, it emphasizes the importance of foreign influence &ndash / that of Western powers and Russia. It argues that these processes were a response to the rising socio-political and economic power of the West and Western intrusions into the territories of each state. In the Turkish case, the modernization process was mainly led by the rising Ottoman - Turkish intelligentsia despite the differences between the Young Ottomans, the Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress members. In the Iranian case, the modernization process was carried out mainly as a grassroots movement comprising reformist intellectuals, members of the ulema, the bazaaris (merchants), trade guilds people, workers and radical members of secret societies. In view of these aspects of the modernization processes taken in the two states, this thesis reveals that both cases ended up replacing their traditional political system with a constitutional monarchy with the aim of saving and reforming the state. The study of the outcomes of the modernizing process in the two states highlights the dissimilarities which are listed as the engagement in alliance-making and wars with the Great Powers, the role of the military, state bureaucracy, the connection between the ulema and the state and nationalist movements.

This thesis aims to examine how patient empowerment based on Internet information has impact on health care processes and patient &ndash / physician relationship. The process of empowerment is analyzed in three main steps / searching and obtaining information / sharing and discussing obtained information with providers / and involving decision making process. Study domain covers with breast cancer patients continuing their treatment in hospitals. In-depth interview methodology has been employed. Interviews are conducted in two settings: one is a university hospital / other is a state hospital of Ministry of Health. Sample size was 20 patients and 6 doctors. As result of study we observed that most of the breast cancer patients have low level of empowerment. This is mainly caused by perception of cancer and high level of anxiety of patients. Most of the middle class women even though they use Internet in everyday life, they neither want to search for information on their cancer not they want to involve in decision making.. Some of the educated upper middle class use Internet however they do not share gathered information with their doctors. They mainly use this information to test competency of doctor. Most patients prefer to seek for information until they made a decision, mostly finding a trustable doctor. Even though some of upper middle class, high education women use Internet intensively, they do not involve in decision and leave the responsibility to the doctor. Young generation regardless of their socio economic situation has tendency to use internet and getting empowered.