Especially recently, cooperatives occupy the global agenda as efficient organizations that contribute to mainstream development goals. However, cooperatives, which may also emerge as grassroots organizations, could create an alternative through empowering women socially, economically and politically. In this respect, this study investigates the impact of women&rsquo / s cooperatives on women&rsquo / s empowerment in urban Turkey. Empowerment Approach composes the theoretical framework of this study. Primarily, the mainstream development approach, Women in Development approach and Gender and Development approach are analyzed critically which are the precursors of Empowerment Approach. Later, Empowerment Approach is analyzed, and benefiting from postmodern approaches that emphasize the importance of local ways of knowing and doing, empowerment is defined as a process that fulfills practical and strategic gender needs through power within, power with and power to, which are generative forms of power. Through field research conducted in Istanbul and its periphery, I concluded that: 1) Women&rsquo / s conceptualization of empowerment overlapped with my conceptualization of power with and power within. However women did not mention power to as power or empowerment. 2) Rather than practical or strategic gender needs, women mostly fulfill psychological and social needs through cooperative involvement. This category emerged as a third category that should be added to practical and strategic gender needs framework. 3) Women&rsquo / s cooperatives empower women through power within and power with, which in turn mostly fulfill social, psychological and practical gender needs. Power to is not revealed through cooperative membership which is in fact a sin qua non aspect of empowerment.

This study has discussed women&rsquo / s empowerment through development projects. For this aim, development thought and practices are questioned by establishing their relationship with modernization theory and (neo)liberal politics / the theories, which include women and development, are issued historically. From these theories, Women in Development (WID) Approach, Gender and Development (GAD) Approach, and Empowerment Approach are critically discussed. In the study three points are emphasized. Firstly, the theoretical approaches have developed by articulating to each other. Secondly, the approaches have lost their transformative and political characteristics in the usage of mainstream development theoricians and institutions. It is pointed that the inclusion of women into development by the mainstream is instrumentalized for the other development goals. Thirdly, although the language of GAD and Empowerment Approaches are adopted by the mainstream, at the discursive and practical level, the dominancy of WID continues. The development projects implemented in Turkey, in the period between 1960 and 1980 and post 1980 that are significant periods of the economic and political history of Turkey, are evaluated from gender perspective and their parallel characteristics to the discourse and practices in the world are indicated. It is seen that whereas the GAD and Empowerment Approach exist in the language of the development projects implemented in Turkey, they do not reflect to the practices. Within the light of these discussions, to be able to comprehend whether the development projects provide contribution to women&rsquo / s empowerment or not, two development projects that are implemented in Turkey are analyzed. The projects are assessed from the Empowerment Approach, as a current feminist approach in the development field, within the framework of power relations.