TÜRKİYE GÖÇ VE MÜLTECİ POLİTİKASININ DIŞ POLİTİKA EKSENİNDE DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ: 2000-2017
AN ASSESSMENT OF TURKEY'S MIGRATION AND REFUGEE POLICIES AND THEIR INTERSECTION WITH FOREIGN POLICY: 2000-2017

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the changes in Turkey’s migration and refugee policies in the light of evolving Turkish Foreign Policy. The main argument of the paper is that while the purpose of the immigration and refugee policies between 2000-2011 was to motivated to comply with the EU standards to achieve the accession as quickly as possible, in the later period, between 2011-2017, Turkey instrumentally used migration/refugee policies to increase its manuvering power with respect to Europe and enhanced its leadership claims in the Middle East. Moreover, the paper approaches to the foreign policy of Turkey in this period as Europeanization and de-Europeanization. In the first period, which can be characterized as Europeanization, the EU encouraged Turkey to become more security-oriented in its border security and visa policies. Turkey sometimes tried to make the required adjustments and sometimes it resisted the EU reforms by protecting its ‘flexible’ migration regime, depending on its faith in Europe’s sincerity for Turkey’s EU membership. In the later period, with the increased influence of Ahmet Davutoğlu in Turkish Foreign Policy, de-Europeanization has affected the evolution of Turkey’s migration policy discourse. The final stroke in this period was the Syrian refugee crisis which has changed the balance of power in the international system and once again obliged Europe to engage with Turkey despite the tense relations.

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