The Role of Security Perceptions in the Development of Turkey’s Migration Policy and Legal Framework: The Example of Turkey-EU Relations

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to examine Turkey's migration policy and its legal framework with regards to the perceptions of security originating from the EU. This thesis analyzes how and to what extent EU’s migration policies affect the development of Turkey’s migration policy. In recent years, the EU has encouraged Turkey to build its approach to migration issues upon a systematic basis. In the EU, there is a deep-rooted perception of security regarding migrants that has developed after the 1970s with the incoming migrants. In this context, the important point for the EU has been the prevention of large migration flows and the protection of external borders. Accordingly, the EU has exported its perceptions of security in order to ensure security within its borders, aiming at the establishment of these security-oriented migration policies and perceptions in third countries such as Turkey. Harmonization of the migration-related legislation and legal infrastructure of the candidate countries, including Turkey with the EU acquis is one step that is taken to that end. This thesis aims to investigate whether the securitization of migration in the EU affects the migration policies of Turkey directly. The main assumption of the present thesis is that the issue of migration is securitized in the EU. In the literature, migration and migration-related concepts are generally associated with political preferences and analyses have been made on the concepts of migration and security to fill the gap. In this context, with the Helsinki Summit, Turkey has been encouraged and suggested to develop an EU-oriented perspective on migration policies. For this reason, it is seen that simple and conventional security theories are not sufficient to explain the migration phenomenon. In this context, the theory of securitization of the Copenhagen School, which forms the theoretical basis of the thesis, and the multi-sector security approach, also known as the multiple approach to security, are elaborated.