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The name Metatheria refers to the clade that contains the extant marsupials and also all extinct mammals that are more closely related to extant marsupials than to the placental mammals. Metatherians first appear in the fossil record of Asia during the Early Cretaceous, with younger records in North America (Late Cretaceous), South America (the latest Cretaceous or earliest Paleocene), and finally Australia via Antarctica (by the Eocene). The Cenozoic fossil record of metatherians in the Old World is rather poor. Except for Europe, there are only a handful of metatherian taxa known from Afro-Arabia and Asia, almost all of which are documented only by isolated teeth or partial jaws. Fieldwork at Uzunçarşı, a fossil site in central Turkey, yielded at least three different metatherian taxa, one of which (Anatoliadelphys) is exceptionally preserved and nearly complete. In this study I demonstrate that Anatoliadelphys occupies a more derived position on the metatherian tree than the well-known South American metatherians such as Pucadelphys. My functional morphological investigations indicate that Anatoliadelphys and the South American taxa Pucadelphys and Mayulestes are different from the extant didelphid marsupials of South America in their skeletal adaptations for locomotion. Anatoliadelphys was most likely terrestrial. / text

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In recent years, the attention is being increasingly drawn to the role of the European Union on the development of minority rights in the candidate countries. The adoption of the Copenhagen political criteria, which also require "respect for and protection of minorities," as preconditions that applicants must have met before they could join the Union has inevitably led to some policy changes to the minorities in Eastern Europe. This policy shift is particularly directed at minority language rights, because one of the most important aspects of the protection of minorities is the recognition of their linguistic identity. The aim of this study is to explore to what extent this development has influenced the situation of language rights of the Kurds in Turkey. In order to answer this question, it first examines the relationship between the Copenhagen criteria and international and European standards protecting minority language rights. Secondly, considering those standards, it assesses the achievements and failures of the recent legislative amendments which are directed to bring the language rights of the Kurds within the line of the Copenhagen criteria. The case of Turkey reveals the vast potential of the European enlargement process on the development of minority language rights, but also its limits in situations where there is a lack of political will to respect and protect diversity.

This thesis is a study of one of the most important national statesmen, politicians, and economists in the history of Turkish republic: Celal Bayar. It will analyze his impact on the Turkish revolution and the evolution of the nation's politics. Celal Bayar, Turkey's third president did not fit the mold of his country's top politicians of the day. He was essentially different from all the other key players of his generation in terms of his background, education, experience, career path, and even length of life. Those who have written about him have for the most part been either uncritical admirers or bitter enemies. Though he held, in turn, the positions of Minister of the Economy, Prime Minister and President (he was the first civilian to hold this part) during one of the most critical periods in Turkish political history. Thus, he was overshadowed by his predecessors Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Ismet Inonu. Yet his very uniqueness makes him an apt subject for study. / Celal Bayar deserves our attention because he undertook crucial responsibilities and duties in the social and economic transformation of Turkey. In an era of strong state policies that made up for the weakness of the social classes, Bayar was the founder of the nation's mixed economy. During the Turkish revolution and the subsequent formation of a united Turkish society, he devoted himself to the development of the national economy. Throughout his political career he exercised a decisive influence over the evolution of the country's politics, economy, society, and foreign relations. Despite his importance, there is a general dearth of academic studies in English about him---a situation that this study seeks to correct.

This dissertation is a study of the political career and thought of Said Halim Pasha (1865--1921), a prominent Islamist thinker and eminent Ottoman statesman, set against the historical and ideological background of his time. / The period covered in this study extends from the twilight of the Hamidian era to the end of the Ottoman Empire (1900--1922). During these two crucial decades, the Ottoman Empire, prior to its demise, went through an immense transformation. The establishment of the Constitutional regime in July 1908 allowed several ideological currents to circulate freely on the political scene and to compete in filling the vacuum created by the fall of the ancien regime. Among these ideologies, three rose to prominency: Westernism, Turkism, and Islamism. Said Halim Pasha, one of the best representatives of the Islamist school, made important contributions to the ideological debates which were raging. In his writings that appeared between 1910 and 1921, Said Halim Pasha advocated a thorough and radical Islamization of the Muslim world in order to halt its decline and to ensure its progress. With regard to his political career as Grand Vizir of the Ottoman Empire, Said Halim Pasha proved himself to be a mastermind of diplomacy. Until his political isolation and deprivation of power by the Turkist wing of the CUP Government, he kept at bay the aggressive imperialist Powers and frustrated their plans to partition the Ottoman Empire.

The main premise of this thesis is to demonstrate how the Gypsies, (Roma)---both Muslim and Christian, both settled and nomadic---were marginalized by the Ottoman State and society in Rumelia (Rumili) and Istanbul during the "Classical Age" of this tri-continental Islamic Empire. / The Ottoman state and the society's attitudes towards this marginal group are analyzed through the examination of the Muhimme Registers of the second half the sixteenth century and four major Kanunnames concerning the Gypsies issued in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Travelers' accounts and Turkish oral traditions have also been used to explore the social status of the Gypsies in Ottoman society, as well as their image in Ottoman popular culture. / The history of people who were marginal and voiceless in their societies is not just important for its own sake but for what it reveals about the nature of the societies in which they lived. Thus, this present work not only sheds light upon the history of the Gypsies but also attempts to open new grounds for further discussions on the functioning of the "Plural Society" of the Ottoman Empire.

After a series of reversals in its wars with European powers during the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was forced to reevaluate its military technology and training. The realization that the West had outstripped the Muslim East in scientific and technological advancement led Ottoman reformers to introduce changes to the traditional educational system, especially to the curriculum. However, what the reformers soon realized was that the military superiority of Europe was only a symptom, and not the cause of, the West's advancement; this led to the introduction of more Western-style institutions in an effort to achieve its military goals. It was through these new institutions that Western ideas of equality, rationalism and liberalism were introduced into the Ottoman Empire. These imported ideas were bitterly resisted by the ulema, who continued to operate a traditional school system parallel to that developed by the reformers. In spite of their objections, however, the traditional Muslim educational system was forced to undergo a significant metamorphosis both prior to and during the Tanzimat period.

This longitudinal inquiry into the academic literacy practices of ten Turkish scholars of International Relations (IR) attempts to answer three broad questions: what factors have affected the participants' acquisition and maintenance of academic reading and writing skills; what patterns of similarities and differences can be found among their literacy practices; and what relationships might be discovered between the various factors and the scholars' literacy practices. Data for the study were collected through observations, autobiographical accounts of the participants' literacy practices via interviews, and textual analysis of the participants' published works. / The theoretical framework for the study draws on neo-Vygotskian Activity Theory and Bakhtinian Dialogic Theory, to create a model for uncovering and understanding the contextual factors mediating scholars' academic literacy practices. The model begins with the assumption that scholars operate within multiple "activity systems" (Engstrom, 1990), in this case: (1) the core American IR discipline; (2) the local Turkish IR discipline/particular Turkish IR departments; and (3) Turkish society. The model reconceptualizes the idea of activity systems as "filters," which mediate individuals' production and reception of texts, i.e. their literacy practices. Conflicts may arise according to the "thickness" of a filter and depending on the "operational means" acceptable within it. / By contributing to a deeper understanding of how people acquire and maintain academic literacy skills in a second language the study ultimately aims to aid in the construction of pedagogical models and approaches that reflect the complex nature of these multi-lingual literacy practices.

This dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of the role played by civilian leaders in the consolidation of democracy examining changes in levels of military influence over politics. This study departs from typical military-centric civil-military relations literature by employing a civilian-centric analysis. In particular, it shows how the former's focus on changing levels of internal threat cannot account for variations in the levels of civilian control over the military. The study instead adopts a framework that focuses on the incentive structure of civilian leaders as determined by competitive elections; the political capacity of leaders as reflected in their parliamentary majority, political experience and the effectiveness of their economic policies; and institutional rules, such as the system of government and organization of the parties. The thesis argues that, depending on their incentive structure and political capacity, the civilian leaders will either challenge a politically powerful military or ally with that military by adopting its preference structures. The relevance of this model for understanding civil-military relations in the aftermath of a transition to democracy is explored in the Turkish case by examining the shift from low to high levels of military influence between late 1980s and mid-1990s. The thesis identifies this shift by looking at the incentive structure and the political capacity of two civilian leaders: Prime Minister/President Turgut Ozal and Prime Minister Tansu Ciller.