This thesis aims to examine the security dimension of Turkey&rsquo / s relations with Russia during the period between 2000 and 2010. In this context, political, military and energy aspects of the security relations between Turkey and Russia are examined in detail. Contrary to the views that conceive the recent rapprochement in Turkish-Russian relations as &lsquo / strategic partnership&rsquo / or a form of cooperation that has the potential of reaching the level of strategic partnership, the thesis argues that these countries have developed their bilateral relations in the form of pragmatic cooperation due to the existing limits to the deeper levels of cooperation in the security field. It seems that the euphoria of rapprochement between two countries is resulted from the diminution of mutual threat levels as well as the proliferation of common interest areas. Nevertheless, despite these developments, both Turkey and Russia continue to consider their relations as a form of pragmatic cooperation rather than strategic partnership.

This thesis aims to problematize the cosmopolitan-spirited quest for a proper and permanent place for Islam and Muslim immigrants in Europe today, and to claim that the efforts to establish a European Islam cannot be thought in isolation from the efforts to consolidate a European identity. Since &ldquo / Europeanizing&rdquo / Islam is a process of inserting it into the politically acceptable formations of the secular in the European public sphere, not only does this project fail to offer a genuine alternative framework for belonging, or an authentic opportunity for dialogue, but also in fact consolidates the European civilizational identity on the one hand, and sustains the metanarrative about the Islamic threat on the other. The major argument of this thesis, therefore, is that the stranger (Muslim) is allowed to enter the host&rsquo / s secular space only under the conditions that construct Islam as the enemy. Forging a European Islam under the rules of secularism, without a radical interruption of the secular - religious division, and without referring to its implication in the discourses of Orientalism and racism, is ultimately a reconsolidation of the authority of the self-same European. This argument will be illustrated via a critical study of three cases of mosque debates in European cities.

This thesis analyzes the transformation of Islamism from an anti-systemic and oppositional force to a compliant and submissive political ideology. The thesis locates the approach towards established political and economic relations at its centre. The thesis argues that the transformation, which led to formation of the Justice and Development Party, has begun in the late 1980s and early 1990s. To give the contours of this transformation, the thesis presents a detailed analysis of anti-systemic and systemic phases of Islamism in Turkey. The thesis tries to demonstrate this transformation through focusing on the major debates within the Islamist intellectual circles. The study suggests thinking the transformation of Islamism together with themes such as neoliberal globalization, postmodernism and multiculturalism. The thesis points out that, Islamism of the 1970s and 1980s, which can be considered as a form of Third Worldist populism has been gradually transformed into an ordinary, conservative ideology.

The thesis analyzes the effects of post-war reconstruction on Bosnian politics, economy and society by focusing on the privatization process. To this end, the strategies followed by local and international actors are examined critically within the context of the globally dominant neoliberal paradigm. This thesis argues that the privatization process has made the realization of the Dayton vision for Bosnian peace- and state-building difficult by strengthening nationalist-extremist local elites, contributing to the creation of pseudo-feudal structures at the local level, and helping accelerate ethnic homogenization on territorial basis. For the international actors, these have been considered to be acceptable risks as long as privatization of strategic sectors is kept insulated and the non-interrupted implementation of the neoliberal programme is ensured.

This thesis mainly deals with the issue that if the policies of women&#039 / s emancipation implemented in Stalinist Central Asia were constructed on the basis of Marxist ideology. For this purpose, after how the issue of women

Global energy trade is one of the most important topics of international relations. This thesis analyzes the European Union (EU)-Russian Federation (RF) energy trade relationship (1991-2008) within an international regime theory perspective. Main hypothesis of the dissertation is that the EU-RF energy trade relationship is an example of partial international regime based on the totality of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), Partnership and Cooperation Treaty (PCA) and the Energy Dialogue. This hypothesis is built on the independent variables (the transformation of the EU&lsquo / s energy policy towards supranationalism / convergence of the energy policy and the foreign policy of the EU / the transformation of the RF&lsquo / s energy policy towards pragmatic statism / convergence of the energy policy and the foreign policy of the RF), intervening variable (EU-RF energy interdependence in natural gas and oil trade) and the dependent variable (international regime formation between the EU and the RF in energy trade). There are also four complementary hypotheses: EU&lsquo / s energy policy has transformed towards supranationalism (hypothesis 2) / energy policy and foreign policy of the EU have practically and officially approached towards each other (hypothesis 3) / RF&lsquo / s energy policy has transformed towards pragmatic statism (hypothesis 4) / energy policy and foreign policy of the RF have practically and officially approached towards each other (hypothesis 5). Original contribution of this dissertation to the relevant literature is its detailed application of the regime theory to the EU-RF relationship which finds that this relationship is a case of partial regime formation.

The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze Turkish-American relationship from critical perspective. In this study critical geopolitics is used to examine the US policymakers&lsquo / discourses over representations of Turkey. Drawing on the theoretical literature, this dissertation took geopolitics as a deeply ideological concept and analyzed the ways in which US geopolitical discourse has shaped the Turkish-American relationship over time. The study outlined the historical evolution of the concept of the geopolitics since the end of the 19th century in order to reveal the limits of the classical geopolitical understanding, and to provide a theoretical framework against which the modern geopolitical imagination of the US has been formulated. Second, it revealed the ideological roots and the main characteristics of American geopolitical discourse. And third, the study applied critical geopolitics to the case of Turkish-American relations with respect to how the imagined geography of Turkey and the alliance have been shaped by the foreign and security policies of the US. Cold War, post-Cold War and post-September 11 periods are analyzed in separate chapters of this study. It is also argued in this dissertation that Turkey generally fits the geopolitical design of the United States and that these two countries have cooperated on numerous efforts in different parts of the world both during and after the Cold War. However, in this period the two allies also experienced several problems that display the limits of US geopolitical discourse.

The aim of this study was to examine whether and how being committed to a close romantic relationship and gender would affect Turkish young adults&rsquo / death-anxiety. Based on Terror Management Theory (TMT), it was hypothesized that participants who are exposed to separation thoughts from a relationship partner would experience more death&ndash / anxiety than participants who are not exposed to separation thoughts from their relationship partners. In this respect, it was also hypothesized that high commitment to the relationship partner would work as a buffer against death-anxiety and those who have higher commitment to their relationship partners would, therefore, experience less death anxiety than those who have lower commitment to their relationship partners. It was also aimed to investigate whether the effects of commitment to close romantic relationships differ between genders. The effect of neuroticism was also controlled for all participants, so that any difference that is observed between groups would not be due to the effects of neuroticism. One-hundred sixty one participants (age range = 19-38) from Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir, Turkey were included in this study. Results suggested no significant main effects of experimental manipulation (i.e. experimental group, control group), commitment level (i.e. high, low) or gender (i.e. female, male) on death-anxiety. A significant interaction effect between commitment level and experimental manipulation was found. According to that, in the experimental group (those who were asked to imagine a separation from their relationship partners) participants with high commitment level were found to experience less death&ndash / anxiety than participants with low commitment level. Also, it was revealed that those who have low commitment to their relationship partners experience more death- anxiety when they were asked to imagine a separation from their relationship partners than when they were not asked to imagine such separation. The same increment in death anxiety was not observed in participants who have high commitment to their relationship partners. The strengths, limitations, and implications of the study were discussed in light of related literature.

This thesis aims to contribute to the debates on the Justice and Development Party (JDP) era Turkish foreign policy by putting Turkey into the regional security complex theory and examines changes and continuities of Turkey&rsquo / s traditional cautious, relatively &ldquo / passive&rdquo / role and &ldquo / relative indifference&rdquo / stance towards the Middle East security complex. Hence, the framework of analysis is the regional security complex theory, attributed roles and role changes of Turkey within regional security complexes. This study, with a historical perspective and within the framework of the regional security complex theory, questions continuities and changes in the JDP period Turkish foreign policy, and comes to the conclusion that in the JDP era, Turkey&rsquo / s role is going beyond the insulator state function to the &ldquo / interface logic&rdquo / which adopts a loose form of geographical boundaries.

This thesis analyzes the reforms in Turkish Prison System in the light of the international standards and accession to the European Union. The standards and Turkey&rsquo / s efforts to comply with the requirements of those standards are handled in historical order. The process, reasons and initiators of the change are evaluated in the thesis. In order to understand if the process is shaped by a top down or a bottom up effect, criticisms of the Council of Europe and the European Union, and petitions of the prisoners sent to Human Rights Investigation Committee of the Turkish Grand National Assembly are examined.