This dissertation consists of three papers revolving around economics of R&amp / D. The first paper analyzes the determinants of R&amp / D expenditures with specific focus on foreign ownership and spillovers / the second paper studies the impact of R&amp / D on productivity and the third paper analyzes whether conducting R&amp / D enables Turkish manufacturing firms to catch up with sector leaders as far as their productivity levels are concerned. The first contribution of the thesis is the use of newly available data from Turkish Institute of Statistics (Turkstat). Two different surveys are matched at the firm level for the years 2003-2007. The second contribution is the employment of a new methodology: Heckman two-stage procedure with instrumental variables for panel data. The third contribution is collection of qualitative data via interviews with R&amp / D performing firms. Foreign ownership has no statistically significant effect on R&amp / D intensity. Foreign knowledge spillovers exert a negative effect on R&amp / D, but in time their effect becomes positive. R&amp / D subsidies and skill affect R&amp / D intensity positively while size influences it negatively. The effect of R&amp / D and skill on productivity is positive and significant. The effect of R&amp / D on technical efficiency is negative but knowledge spillovers exert a positive effect on technical efficiency.

During the recent years in Turkey, the word &ldquo / apache&rdquo / had taken its place in Turkish popular culture as a pejorative word that is used to label a group of slum-dweller, working class youth. Those young people are distinguished through their visual styles, music consumption, and everyday activities that form a subculture. This thesis, firstly, is an attempt to understand the material, social and cultural circumstances which produce this subculture. Secondly, the thesis seeks to analyze the cultural reflections of these circumstances into the subculture that is emerging. As an attempt to understand that process, a four months media survey and a ten months field research with in-depth interviews and participant observation was conducted with the members of this subculture in Ankara-Turkey. As a result of the media survey and the field research it was observed that the most dominant factor that leads to/produces this subculture is the precarious working conditions that these youths are embedded. The members of that subculture are composed of the young members of the working class who enter into labor market under the &lsquo / internalized&rsquo / conditions of precarity. They consistently, experience employment under the precarious working conditions and unemployment. Therefore, they occupy a liminal and marginalized position in which they neither articulate to their class position nor depart from it. Their ambiguous position in the relations of production redounds on their cultural practices. They create a subculture both through the mediation of their socio-economically obscure position and as a cultural response to it. They seek to construct a new position through the survival strategies and daily tactics in the realm of cultural practices / through a subculture in which they can define and situate themselves within the bounds of possibilities of their material conditions. However, this subculture also constitutes a continuum with their material conditions and consolidates their liminality. They are labeled as Apaches in that subculture and experience a similar kind of a marginalization with their counterpart precarious youth in all around the world. This thesis examines that subculture in which the cultural reflections of young people to precarity became concrete.

This thesis attempts to examine the relationship between liberal intellectuals and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) in Turkish politics. The Justice and Development Party was elected to power in the 2002 general elections, and has been continually in power since. The rise of the AKP was interpreted as a real historical break in Turkish politics since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, and sparked the emergence of new public discussions and academic debates on the significance of the party to Turkish politics. The rise and rule of the AKP was also prepared by the formation of a group of intellectuals who classified themselves as liberals or democrats, those focused on in this study comprising mainly columnists in Turkish newspapers. This intellectual stratum showed an exceptional sympathy and support towards the AKP, especially between the years 2002-2011, which also corresponded to the establishment of hegemony of the AKP in Turkish politics and the AKP&#039 / s furthering of neo-liberalization. This study analyzes the nature and multiple dimensions of the relationship between liberal intellectuals and the AKP in Turkish politics and within the larger context of neo-liberalism. The study employs concepts of hegemony and passive revolution and intellectuals developed by Antonio Gramsci, as a theoretical framework, and argues that this intellectual stratum provided the AKP with an ideological leadership during the establishment of the hegemony of the party in Turkish politics and contributed to the perpetuation of neo-liberalism in Turkey by the agency of the AKP.

This thesis analyzes the Justice and Development Party government

In thesis, the way wended by European Union immigration policy is addressed under the light of historical background. Essentially, the arguments regarding immigration and free movement aroused and gained momentum in EU in 1980s. During 1990s, the justice and home affairs subjects obtained a central point among EU policies abruptly. However, despite all the efforts since then, it is still early to say that there emerges a uniform European immigration policy. In fact, it is quite hard to reach such a common policy, due to the unique structural requirements, different priorities and expectations of the Member States. It is examined in dissertation then why the Member States&rsquo / policymakers still insist on a common EU immigration policy in spite of this. The researcher asserts that some aspects of the common EU immigration policy serve as a new migration control mechanism in order to be able to take additional measures limiting third country nationals&rsquo / access to the rights of EU citizens by transferring restrictive national approaches and legislation into a supranational venue. It is also scrutinized in thesis in what ways Turkish citizens composing considerable population within Community borders and Turkey as a candidate state conducting negotiations on the membership process are affected from these efforts for a common EU immigration policy. It is examined whether this process generate any new breaking point in Turkish-EU relations or not.

This research aimed to put forth changes and continuities in the formation of the official history and its dissemination through education, with particular emphasis to history courses in high schools during the Early Republican Era with reference to the ministerial decisions, parliamentary discussions, history textbooks and also history and educational congresses held during Atat&uuml / rk and In&ouml / n&uuml / eras. 1930s for the Turkish Republic was a time span when the core principles of the regime were formulized to ensure that they were publicly comprehended and posesed. Correspondingly, formal and informal educational institutions were established for the dissemination of these principles, i. e. official ideology. Among them, Turkish History Association played an important role in formulation of official history which was one of the major means to install Turkish identity and a collective memory to the nation. In this respect, history courses and especially textbooks served instilling Republican understanding of history. The presidency of Ismet In&ouml / n&uuml / were the years when the regime was consolidated and intoleration to the opposing views was decreased. This also affected the official perception of history, by dissolving the clear break from the recent past and reconciling it with the modernization process of Ottoman-Turkish history while paying attention to the ccontinuities.

The general purpose of this thesis is to provide a gendered analysis of the ways in which States use their power to facilitate and promote accumulation, specifically primitive accumulation. I will seek to demonstrate in this study that women, classed and racialised, and especially those migrating within the neo-liberal global political economy are exploited not only through the classical alienation of their labour, but from the application of the additional extra-economic power of patriarchy and the tools that provides to states, and typically male owning classes. Women&rsquo / s position in patriarchal society and patriarchal capitalism may transform their experiences with capital and the state into a relationship of accumulation by dispossession rather than having their labour alienated and exploited under typical expanded reproduction. States use the constructions of women as subordinate under patriarchy, as well as others about migrant labour, or about the &lsquo / aberrant&rsquo / nature of sex work, to justify the use of women&rsquo / s bodies in the sex trade in a way that promotes the primitive accumulation, or accumulation by dispossession of surplus value from their labour and bodies. This study will use the Turkish Republic of northern Cyprus as an example to highlight the arguments made about the ability of a patriarchal state in collusion with capital, to use the extra controls afforded by patriarchy to primitively accumulate wealth from women, and to reproduce that ability on a continuous scale.

This thesis emphasizes the role of being an information society in countries&rsquo / development perspective / furthermore aims to study the economic, social and structural dimensions of information society related policies with the case studies of Turkey and South Korea. Although in 1950s Turkey and South Korea had similar characteristics in terms of basic economic and social indicators, Turkey has lagged behind in South Korea in terms of development perspective and information society parameters. In addition, information society levels of Turkey and South Korea are measured and compared by ICT development index. Information society policies of South Korea and Turkey are analyzed in the scope of national science and technology policies separately. In theoretical perspective, transforming to information society is analyzed on the basis of &ldquo / Deployment policies in the field of ICT&rdquo / and &ldquo / Two models of network policy formation&rdquo / . The findings of the study indicate that, although hegemonic ruler organizations determine science and technology and transforming to information society related policies, government should not apply these policies without considering their internal dynamics. These policies should be re-evaluated and modified in the scope of national advantages and priorities. In addition, this study aims to indicate the importance of the role of science and technology policies on being an information society for 21st century.

This thesis seeks to depict the German stance towards European security in the post-Cold War era. It attempts to portray the continuity and change in Germany&rsquo / s policies towards the maintenance of European security first, by specifying the differences between the Cold War and the post-Cold War era, and second, within the years after the reunification of the two German states. This is examined in the light of the main developments in the international level, the European Union (EU) level and the German domestic level. These include on the international level the War in Kosovo, the Afghanistan intervention and the Iraq War / on the European Union level the EU treaties up until the Treaty of Lisbon and the developments on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) / and lastly on the German domestic level the 1994 and 2006 Wei&szlig / buch (White Paper), which are official documents published by the German Ministry of Defence. This thesis indicates the change in Germany&rsquo / s European security perception after the reunification towards a new and different sort of assertiveness. It is argued that this assertiveness invigorates within a European Germany.

This thesis rethinks the security dilemma within the context of the Cyprus problem. It analyzes and problematizes the established political discourses and societal insecurities in Cyprus. It basically contends that the Cyprus problem should be reconceptualized from a critical security perspective, utilizing the fatalist, mitigator and transcender logics of insecurity. In that regard, it advances the idea that the security paradox in Cyprus should be rethought with the aim of transcending it through reconciliation and trust-building. The thesis takes attention to the scope of human agency, both at the state and human society levels, in the processes of reconciliation and trust-building, and concludes that these processes are key in transforming the two communities in the island into a post-national and pluralistic community of Cyprus.