In 2001, Turkey started an agricultural reform program which ended at the end of 2008. The major component of the reform program was to make the transfers decoupled from production. In this scope, direct income support (DIS) was the tool that has been used to reduce the price distortions. DIS received noteworthy criticisms since the first signs of it and now, even after it is over, the prejudice against DIS prevails in Turkey. On the other hand, Turkey&rsquo / s commitments to WTO&rsquo / s Agreement on Agriculture insist on replacing price supports with non-distortionary policy tools and its candidacy to the membership of the EU requires harmonizing its agricultural policy to the CAP which is shifting towards direct income payments. Criticisms against DIS in Turkey are determined in this thesis, grouped and analyzed by investigating official data to see whether the fears came true. There were both rational and irrational criticisms and consequently, they could not be justified and agricultural issues were not worse off in DIS years. Turkey will eventually have to implement direct income payments again due to both domestic and international forces. Therefore, it is essentially important to understand how it was implemented previously and which aspects of it were exposed to criticisms, and design future policies accordingly.

Today, the proliferation of social communication channels and the rapidization of communication cause fast dispersion of information and interpretation of social, cultural and economic developments. Therefore, societies interact with organizations not only through products and services, but also through image, visibility, perceptions, rumors, etc. Organizations have to develop reputation policies / they have to measure, track and manage their reputation. The most important element of an organization&rsquo / s reputation management is the ability to see its current reputation standing and make proper projections. Reputation measurement studies aim to achieve that. However, these studies usually focus on the perceptions and assessments of organizations&rsquo / characteristics and performances. There are social dynamics and social identities, which are constituted independent of what an organization is and does, and they are influential on reputation. Ignoring this would lead to a blurry picture of reputation. Social issues and developments operating independent of the organization, but are related to its products/services, do have impact on people&rsquo / s assessment of reputation. This study focuses on the significance of the social determination of reputation. It claims that socially influential discourses like health, anti-Americanism, environmentalism, along with political or cultural identities, act as a filter for people&rsquo / s evaluations of companies&rsquo / reputations. Individuals, when they give reputation scores to companies, not only consider their characteristics, products or services, their size, internationality, etc. but also evaluate companies&rsquo / identities, their positions with respect to social issues related to their products/services. Individuals also evaluate reputation according to their own habituses, their political and cultural identities.

This study aims at understanding the discursiveness of T&uuml / rk-Is, Hak-Is and DISK against the neoliberal policies textually and discursively shaped by the governments and employers in the years between 1980 and 2003 in Turkey. In this sense, Norman Fairclough&#039 / s critical discourse analysis and Laclau and Mouffe&#039 / s discourse theory constitute the theoretical framework of this study. In this theoretical perspective, this study analyzes discourses of the labor confederations in four historical moments called January 24 measures (1980 coup), 1994 crisis, February 28 process and 2001 crisis. In each historical moment, governments and Turkish bourgeoisie have produced new hegemonic discourses and texts in order to construct the actors and circumstances of working life under the influence of the global neoliberal order since 1980. Against this neoliberal construction of working life, texts and counter-discourses of these labor confederations become important in order to understand their hegemonic capacities. In this context, this study portrays the relation among governments, employers and the labor confederations in a hegemonic relation and argues that the hegemonic capacities of these labor confederations could not prevent construction of &#039 / new worker&#039 / as a prototype in the individualization and flexibilization of working life in the post 1980 Turkey.

Three purposes of this study are (1) to explore the general pattern of Turkish fathers&rsquo / and their own fathers&rsquo / involvement level, (2) to investigated the possible effect of perceived own father involvement level on fathers own involvement level to their 0-8 year-old children&rsquo / s lives (2) to examine the determinants of fathers&rsquo / involvement into their 0-8 year old children. The participants in this study were 528 biological-resident fathers, who live in different districts of Ankara, the central city of Turkey. All of these fathers have at least one child who is between the ages of 0 and 8. The data of this study were collected through three different scales, Fatherhood Scale ( Dick, 2000), Inventory of Father Involvement ( Hawkins et al.,2002) and Suppose Support Scale (Yildirim,2004). In addition to these scales a demographic information form was also sent to fathers. The data were examined through a statistical analysis program. The results of descriptive analysis illustrated that fathers of both generation mostly engage in activities related to their provider role and their least engagement occurs in activities related with availability. MANOVA results indicated that there is a mean differences among three groups of fathers in the IFI 1 (Mother support and teaching) and IFI 3 (Availability) variable. On the other hand, Multiple Linear Regression Analysis indicated that only fathers&rsquo / age, their age of being father and their perceptions about how their suppose support them are significant predictors of fathers&rsquo / involvement level in their 0-8 year-old children&rsquo / s lives. Results of this study suggest the following implications. First, fathers, mothers or even children should be educated about the importance of paternal involvement. Second, in the current study two scales related with father involvement were adapted to Turkish culture. These two scales can be used in further research. Third, since different factor structures have been yielded through EFA from original factor structure, this study supported the idea that father involvement and fatherhood is a cultural issue. Although cultural issues were considered during adaptation process, since scales about father involvement were developed in Western cultures, evaluations about fathers&rsquo / involvement were done according to Western criteria. This study can encourage researchers to develop a cultural conceptualization of fatherhood and father involvement.

This thesis analyzes the evolution of the policies, strategies and actions of NATO within the context of the fight against transnational terrorism. The thesis focuses on the post 9/11 period. After the 9/11 events, the security perceptions of NATO changed dramatically and the threat of transnational terrorism emerged as a prominent challenge to the security of all members of NATO so the fight against terrorism became a key priority for NATO. Consequently, the NATO experienced a significant transformation since 2001 in order to have an effective and active role in the fight against transnational terrorism. In this thesis, Afghanistan operation of NATO is evaluated in terms of NATO&rsquo / s readiness to deal with soft security threats such as transnational terrorism effectively. The thesis argues that despite the significant achievements of NATO in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan, NATO has not yet become quite effective in dealing with transnational terrorism since the Alliance is still primarily designed to deal with conventional hard security threats. This thesis has five main chapters. The first chapter is the introduction. In the second chapter NATO&rsquo / s security concerns and its stance with regard to terrorism in the Cold War and post-Cold War era is discussed. The third chapter continues with the examination of NATO&rsquo / s transformation after the 9/11 attacks in terms of fight against transnational terrorism. The fourth chapter explores the Afghanistan operation of NATO. The fifth chapter is the conclusion.

This study examined Turkish in-service early childhood education teachers&rsquo / self-reported beliefs and self-reported practices in relation to classroom assessment, to see if there were any relationships among in-service early childhood education teachers&rsquo / philosophies, their self- reported practices, their educational backgrounds, and their professional backgrounds. A survey method was conducted for his study. Participants consisted of in-service early childhood education teachers from early childhood centers serving children 3 to 6 years located in Ankara, Turkey. Questionnaires were applied to 200 teachers in 62 ECE centers from authorized 81 centers, who represents different educational and professional backgrounds. Results revealed that in-service early childhood education teachers&rsquo / beliefs are correlated with their classroom practices. Earned educational degree and year of experience in their professions, and number of teaching staff in the classroom were found to be related to their self-reported beliefs as well as their self-reported classroom practices.

The present study tested the mortality salience (MS) hypothesis of Terror Management Theory (TMT) on attitudes towards allowance of headscarf in the universities. Sample of the current study consisted of 208 university students. Religious, secular and liberal views were evaluated by participants. The results of 2 (Attitude: Supporters, Opponents) X 2 (Condition: Mortality salience, Control) ANOVAs showed that despite the lack of significant main effect of condition and interaction effect, MS tended to lead supporters of headscarf to evaluate both religious and secular essay more favorably but the liberal essay less favorably. On the contrary, opponents of headscarf tended to become supportive of the secular essay but critical of the religious and liberal essay following MS. Findings were discussed considering past literature and alternative theoretical perspectives.

The present study aimed to investigate the fears of female and male children and adolescents between the ages of 8 and 18 from different socioeconomic levels. Additionally, the origins of children&rsquo / s and adolescents&rsquo / fears were examined. To reach the aims, the study was divided into two stages. In the first stage adaptation study of Fear Survey Schedule for Children-AM (Burnham, 1995) into Turkish was conducted. Two different samples were utilized in stage one. First sample was comprised of 355 participants (173 females and 182 males) with a mean age of 12.66 (SD=3.05). Second sample was comprised of 1315 participants (642 females and 673 males) with a mean age of 13.15 (SD=3.18). Second stage of the study was the main study. Second sample of the first stage including 1315 participants was utilized in stage two. Beside Fear Survey Schedule for Children, assessing the origins of children&rsquo / s and adolescents&rsquo / fears were utilized in the present study. Results of the study pointed that female children from low socioeconomic status at age 8 were the most fearful group among all children and adolescents. Also, for all fear factors female children and especially from low socioeconomic status reported higher level of fear than male preadolescents and adolescents. In general, it can be said that being female, from low socioeconomic status and young especially at age 8 is related to more intense fears. Among all children and adolescents, fears of children at age 8, 9 and 10 were significantly different than fears of preadolescents and adolescents at various ages, but they were not significantly different than each other. Fears of preadolescents at age 11, 12 and 13 were significantly different than preadolescents at least 2 years older than themselves. Overall most commonly endorsed fears were &ldquo / someone in my family dying&rdquo / , &ldquo / going to Hell&rdquo / , &ldquo / death of a closed person (grandparent, best friend etc.)&rdquo / , &ldquo / abuse&rdquo / , &ldquo / God&rdquo / , &ldquo / AIDS&rdquo / , &ldquo / someone in my family having an accident&rdquo / , &ldquo / my parents separating or getting divorced&rdquo / and &ldquo / terrorist attacks&rdquo / . Findings related to the origins of children&rsquo / s and adolescents&rsquo / fears indicated that 64.8% of all children learnt fear by modeling, 51.8% of all children learnt fear by negative information transmission and 35.8% all of children fear by experiences (conditioning). Negative information transmission intensified 45.7% of all children and adolescents, modeling intensified 49% of all children and adolescents and experience (conditioning) intensified 44.8% of all children and adolescents.

In the present study, organizational commitment&lsquo / s relationship with a number of antecedents and consequences were examined. In more detail, firstly the effects of job characteristics (i.e., job variety, promotional opportunity, organizational fairness, and perceived organizational support) on three dimensions of organizational commitment namely affective, normative, and continuance commitment were examined. Secondly, how these three dimensions of organizational commitment predict two dimensions of performance (i.e., task and contextual performance) and turnover intentions were examined. With these purposes, a pilot study was conducted with the participation of 45 employees and then in the main study questionnaires were administered to a sample of 175 employees working in different public organizations. According to the results of the study, job characteristics significantly and positively predicted both affective and normative commitment in addition to overall commitment but they were not significant predictors of continuance commitment. In more detail, affective commitment was predicted by job variety, promotional opportunity and perceived organizational support while normative commitment was predicted by job variety and perceived organizational support. The results of the mediation analysis revealed that perceived organizational support partially mediated the organizational fairness - affective organizational commitment relationship. Among three dimensions of commitment, affective and normative commitment were found to significantly and negatively predict turnover intentions of employees. On the other hand, none of the three dimensions significantly predicted task performance when self ratings were used but affective and normative commitment significantly influenced self reported contextual performance. However, three dimensions of commitment were not significant predictors of task, contextual or overall performance rated by supervisors. The results of the study, its implications, limitations and directions were future research were discussed in more detail.

The purpose of the study was to examine the relation of mother daughter relationship to well- being of the daughters with respect to self-esteem and life satisfaction. The sample was consisting of 426 female university students from Ankara and Kirsehir with a mean age of 21.62 (SD= 2.35). The scales which were used in that study are Adult Daughter Questionnaire (MAD) (Rastogi, 1995), The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, &amp / Griffin, 1985). Adult Daughter Questionnaire (MAD) (Rastogi, 1995) has been used to measure the current mother-daughter relationship. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) has been used to measure global self esteem, and The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin, 1985) has been used to measure the global life satisfaction. The canonical correlation analysis was utilized to examine the relationships between the mother daughter questionnaire&rsquo / s subscales ( connectedness, interdependency and trust in hierarchy) and the two indicators of well being namely life satisfaction and self-esteem. The results of the study showed that the three indicators of the mother-daughter relationship (connectedness, interdependency, and trust in hierarchy) and the two indicators of well being (self-esteem and life satisfaction) were interrelated. In other words mother daughter relationship is positively related to life satisfaction and self esteem of the daughters.