From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society

November 2015

From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society CÜNEYT TANDOĞAN

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From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society Cüneyt Tandoğan Center For Democratization And Good Governance

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Istanbul Institute Istanbul Institute is a think-tank which started its activities in 2014 with an aim to identify social, economic and political issues on both regional and global scale, as well as to suggest alternative solutions to them. With the contribution of national and international academics and intellectuals, Istanbul Institute seeks to contribute to global peace by realizing its goals.

Istanbul Institute focuses on studies dealing with democracy, human rights, civil society, conict resolution, social equality and sustainable development among others.

From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society iSTANBUL ENSTiTÜSÜ İstanbul Toplum Siyaset ve Ekonomi Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Tophaneli Caddesi, Aygün Sokak, Altunizade Plaza No:4/A Altunizade/ Üsküdar/ İSTANBUL, TÜRKİYE Cüneyt Tandoğan İstanbul Enstitüsü Yayınları First Edition: November 2015 Copyright © November 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by electronic or mechanical means (photocopies, downloading, archiving, etc.) without the permission of the Istanbul Institute.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the writers and may not correspond in part or in full to the views of Istanbul Institute as an institution.

CONTENTS Manager and Participants

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Executive Summary

7

Introduction

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Location designated for the Project: Blacksea Eregli

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NGOs Interviews within the Scope of the Project

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Interview Questions and Featured Responses

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Common Questions

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Questions Specific to the Group

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Findings Obtained from Interviews

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Outcomes of Students Participating in the Project

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Conclusions and Suggestions

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Appendix: Photos from Interviews

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Demokrat Bireyden Demokratik Topluma From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society

Manager and Participants Project Finance

Students Participating in the Project

Private Fatih High School

Aybike Biricik

Istanbul Institute

Ayşe Sağlam Beyzanur kalaycı

Project Coordinator

Hüseyin Sevim

Cüneyt Tandoğan

Semanur Aksakal Zeynep Sude Alataş

Project Advisory Committee

Ömer Bakaç

Prof. Dr. İhsan Yılmaz

Alperen Tatar

Assist. Prof. Dr. İhsan Çolak

Neslinur Durmuş

Ahmet Arıkçı

Sena Yalçın

Oğuzhan Tekin

Sevinç Beysun Sağar

Hüsnü Yılmaz

Seleme Kayabaşı

Fahrettin Tatar

Zeynep Rana Çelik

Onur Bayar

Ekin Ceren Çetinkaya Ayşenur Sağlam

Seminar Presenters

Furkan Kocabaş

Prof. Dr. İhsan Yılmaz

Ayşenur Kaçar

Assist. Prof. Dr. Şammas Salur

Ahmet Faik Öztürk

Assist. Prof. Dr. İhsan Çolak

Busenur Yılmaz

Assist. Prof. Dr. Engin Şahin

Sena Kara

Onur Atalay

Mustafa Termeli

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Executive Summary With the purpose of increasing the awareness of democracy and democratic values, the project, called “From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society”, was carried out with the participation of 23 outstanding students from Private Yildirim High School in Eregli at Blacksea. First, a week-long training seminar, with the themes of “state”, “democracy”, “civil society” and “pluralism”, was given to 23 students for this purpose. Then, students conducted interviews with 10 NGOs in Eregli using face to face interview method by the information they obtained. NGOs with different world views were identified with the idea of presenting a sample in reference to Turkey.

There are two basic objectives of the project: First, to make young individuals to internalize democratic values such as civil society, pluralism and responsible citizenship and thus, to ensure their active participation to civil society. Second, to be able to observe to what extent NGOs are active and how much they embraced democratic values.

The first outcome of the project is the students’ gains from this project.

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It is in itself a gain for individuals at secondary-high school level to carry out such projects when

considering it from Turkey’s standards.

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In addition, it is also important that such kind of projects will pave the way for “Community of

Young Democrats” that could popularize them.

Other important outcomes of the project are the determinations for the operation of NGOs.

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NGOs have not fully digested democratic values such as consultation, collective wisdom, accounta-

bility, and resignation mechanisms.

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These values melt in the intense hierarchical structure of NGOs.

Given the findings of the project, it is seen that there are promising developments for democracy. However, this hope’s potential to secure a place in the future depends on young people’s reception of support in these kinds of works.

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Demokrat Bireyden Demokratik Topluma From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society

Introduction Istanbul Institute Democratization and Good Governance Center and Thought Club at Private Fatih High School at Blacksea Eregli carried out “From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society” between the periods of January and September 2015 together with 23 young people aged between 16-18 who continue their education and 10 NGOs. The aim of the project is to increase awareness of young individuals about the importance of democratic society and to ensure their active participation to civil society in line with this importance. At the same time, the project draws attention to the significance and value of active participation of civil society in the decision-making process in democracies.

The project consists of two stages: students were given seminars in the framework of democratic theories in the first stage. Ufuk Publications editor Onur Atalay provided an answer to the question “What is State?” in these seminars. Fatih University Faculty Member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sammas Salur examined the issue of “Democracy and Democratization of Turkey”. While “the Supremacy of Law and Division of Power” was explained by the head of Political Science and Public Administration department at Fatih University Assist.

Prof. Dr. Engin Sahin, the head of International Relations department at Suleyman Sah University Assist.

Prof. Dr. Ihsan Colak stooped over “Turkey’s Political History”. Finally, Istanbul Institute President Prof. Dr. Ihsan Yilmaz provided information on “Civil Society”. A survey was administered to the participating 23 students immediately after training seminars.

The 2nd stage of the project is the implementation part conducted through interviews with NGO representatives through questions prepared within the scope of the theories learned during seminars. Then, responses, given to these questions, were summarized in a four-day workshop together with students.

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Location Designated for the Project: Blacksea Eregli Eregli is a district that makes significant contributions to country’s economy thanks to the concerned enterprises like Erdemir Iron and Steel Factory. Therefore, it receives immigration from different regions and its population is quite high compared to an average district. In this regard, this project, conducted in a narrow scale in Eregli, can create a conviction partly for Turkey.

NGOs that gave Interviews within the Scope of Project Interviews conducted with 8 of NGOs and 2 of political parties in Eregli in the implementation stage of the project. In the earlier stage of the project, they were targeted with 20 institutions in 5 different groups including associations, trade unions and political parties from education, faith-aid-service and business world.

But, appointments could be taken only from 8 NGOs and 2 political parties. These are; Educational Associations

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Eğitim Sevenler Association

Belief, Aid and Service Organizations

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Alevi Cultural Association Lions Club

Businessmen Associations

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Ereğli Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ereğli Businessmen’s Association

Trade Unions

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Journalists Association Turkish Metal Union Turkey – Education Union

Political Parties

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Nationalist Movement Party Vatan Party

The institutions, such as Kemalist Thought Association (ADD), Blacksea Eregli Education Foundation and Egitim-Sen, could not be reached; appointments could not be taken although telephone communication was established with Support for Modern Life Association (ÇYDD) and the Turkish Education Association (TED). EVEDER, MÜSİAD, Saadet Party, AK Party and CHP representatives could not be interviewed because either they were busy or responsible people considered this project to be political.

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Demokrat Bireyden Demokratik Topluma From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society

Interview Questions and Featured Responses Students conducted interviews with the representatives of NGOs within the framework of questions pre-determined. Some responses of interview questions were recorded as audio to the extent permissions could be taken from the representatives, if not permitted, they were recorded as notes. The first six questions were common in interviews and 1 question was prepared differently for each respondent.

Common Questions “Can you explain three of your objectives as a NGO? How is your relationship with the local and central government in order to achieve these objectives?”

The objectives of NGOS, visited in Eregli district, vary in accordance with their missions and are in local scale. It was expressed that good relations should be maintained with the influential people representing the local government in order for NGOs to realize their objectives. However, it was also stated that goodness or badness of these relations depended on the attitudes of people representing the local government. In addition to this, relations with the local government also vary in accordance with the objectives of the NGO. For example, while Eregli Journalists Association President states that “good relations must be established with the government whatever is the political color of the mayor of Eregli. In addition, there are economic relations with the government (advertisement, etc)”, the Eregli Businessmen’s Association emphasized that there should be no direct economic bond with the local government.

“How do you think should the dialogue be with the political government in an ideal democracy?

What kind of responsibilities fall on people?”

It was emphasized that NGOs’ dialogues with political government should be as neutral as possible. In addition, it was also stated that the dialogue should be within the framework of principles established on the basis of freedom and democracy. While the duty of NGO representatives is to be at equal distance with each party or representative, politicians’ duty is to treat their respondents in an equal manner without marginalizing them.

“Can you make your voice heard in the local sense if I have to ask? How do you express your wishes and do you get any results?”

Representatives of the headquarters can have their voices heard by adapting their activities to local scale.

Local NGOs can have their voices heard based on the personal ability of the local representative. However, it was reported that some philanthropic NGOs, like Lions Club, did not act with the purpose of having their voices heard, but preferred relatively more introverted activities.

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Besides all these, managers who complain about the existence of intense pressures on NGOs stated that NGOs experienced constraints at the point of having their voices heard in some cases. They suggested all NGOs to come together in order to have their voices heard as a way of resolving these problems.

“In which local and national decision have you played roles recently? What kind of work did you do? Was it successful?”

Representatives of the headquarters talked about their projects that were influential in national decisions in their centers. In local sense, neither local representatives of the headquarters nor associations in Eregli scale are able to influence decision-making processes. However, associations, where strong capital owners leagued together, are active in local decision-making process compared to others. It was observed that representatives of political parties were more effective in decision making processes in local sense than NGOs. “What should be done to make NGOs effective in Turkey?”

Emphasis on nurturing young people, who internalized democratic values, was made. It was stated that these nurtured individuals should take active roles in NGOs. While emphasizing the need to have democratic awareness settled not only at individual but also in social level, values, such as respecting ideas and freedom, should also become spread in society. It was believed that NGOs that have active roles between political and civil lives would be able to have their voices heard more vibrantly in such a free and more democratic society. In a society where this does not take place, NGOs will not be optimistic about their future and will be complaining about the pressures on them in a society as it is the case today.

“How do you have democratic values such as accountability, transparency, criticism and consultation-based operation, functioned in your NGO?” In general, representatives perceived the concepts of accountability and transparency with their economic denotation. Therefore, they stated that they should be transparent and accountable as required by the legislation. However, these two concepts were not perceived in the context of “transparency in decision-making processes” or “accountability of managers”.

When it comes to criticism and consultation-based works, either no response was given to this matter or it was avoided by few words and no convincing response was given.

Another issue needed to be mentioned in this question is how the decisions of headquarters were implemented at local scale. No response was given to the issue of criticism and consultation-based works in local representatives linked with the headquarters. Local scaled NGOs evaded with superficial sentences like “consultations are being made” and did not provide any satisfactory answers. This shows that the consultative mechanisms and critical thinking in NGOs do not function healthily.

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Question Specific to Groups 1. Educational Associations: “What are your advices for the internalization of concepts such as civil society and democracy in the field of education? Is there any work that you previously undertook?”

Educational association did not provide satisfactory responses to this question. They stated that many associations should come together for the internalization of concepts such as civil society and democracy.

They also emphasized the need to attain federal structure in order to realize this.

2. Belief, Aid and Service Groups: “What are your advices for the internationalization of concepts such as civil society and democracy in the fields of belief, aid and service?” Is there any work that you previously undertook?”

The internationalization of these concepts is directly proportional to the increase of NGOs. At the same time, they are also required to operative actively.

3. Businessmen Associations: “What kind of interaction existed between economy and democracy?”

The prominent idea that emerged from those experienced by Businessmen Associations is the direct proportion between the development of economy and that of democracy.” While stating the non-existence of arbitrary practices in countries where the democracy is developing, it was emphasized that the economy would also be developed proportionally and the gap between rich and poor would decrease.

4. Trade Unions: “Can you comment on the contributions of union activities to the democratic participation? What kind of works did you carry out at this point?”

It was emphasized that unions needed to defend the rights of workers in an impartial way. In addition to this, it was stated that trade unions needed not to be polarized and freely defend the rights of workers. It was suggested that it would be beneficial for them to stay away from ideological and partisan approaches.

5. Political Parties: “How would you evaluate the relationship between democracy and civil society as a political party preparing for elections? What kind of promises do you make for further development of these values?”

It was stated that NGOs were indispensable dynamics of democratic governance and parties needed to integrate with these institutions in order to express themselves. Both parties made promises in line with their principles for further development of these values.

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Findings Emerged from Interviews Students reached the following conclusions in the implementation stage of the project:

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NGOs do not undertake active roles in society contrary to the reasons of their existence in Eregli

scale. Not even phone communication was established with 6 of NGOs that could not be interviewed.

Many of NGOs in Eregli are local representatives whose headquarters are elsewhere.

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Students perceived that there were serious pressures on NGOs. They pointed out pressures co-

ming from political government recently while answering the question “What should NGOs do in order for civil society to be more active in Turkey?”

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Students could not get satisfactory responses to the question “How do you execute democratic

values such as accountability, transparency, criticism and consultation-based works?” NGOs perceived accountability as an economic issue. Many of them did not provide consistent and convincing responses about criticism and consultation-based work. The approach in question yielded question about healthy functionality of NGO’s internal consultation mechanisms.

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Students encountered some obstacles while demanding to conduct interviews of NGOs. They had

the impression that the school where they study became effective in this situation. For example, it was reported that there were some NGO representatives who gave appointment when communicated in the first place, but cancelled them when students revealed which school they came from. These people were stated to be linked with AKP, MUSIAD, CYDD and TED Foundation.

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Students stated that their prejudice against certain NGOs prior to interviews changed after the in-

terviews. For example, interview with Alevi Culture Association led to positive changes in the perception of students towards the association. Students were affected by the courteous and hospitable approach of the representative with whom they conducted interview and emphasized that the concerned representative gave more convincing answers than those of other NGOs.

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It was reported that attitudes of especially trade union and political party representatives were

skeptical and negative even though the project’s content was stated to be about democracy and civil society. For example, it was suggested that political parties either showed reaction in the way of “this project being political-themed” or rejected the interview request with a pretext and gave evasive answers to the questions.

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It was observed that the only one of the administrators (Vatan Party) of the institutions inter-

viewed was woman and all of the others were males.

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Demokrat Bireyden Demokratik Topluma From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society

Outcomes of Students Participating in the Project Outcomes after Training Seminars A survey was administered to the participating students at the end of training seminars. Answer to the question “What do you understand by democracy?” was sought in this survey. Considering the fact that participants are high school students, getting relatively more creative answers to this question beyond the classical information sentence in the form of “democracy is the form of everybody’s governance of themselves” were noteworthy and showed the contribution of the project to the students. Prominent answers given to this question are as follows:

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Democracy is a form of government in which everyone has equal rights regardless of color, race

and religious faith.

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Democracy imposes responsibilities on individuals within a system in which there are rules.

Democracy is a system in which freedom, equality, civil society, law and republic can be found all

together.

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Democracy is the compatible relationship between state and individual on the basis of the rule of

law.

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Democracy is not just about casting votes. It is the name of the system where rights and legal

concepts find provisions, individuals are aware of their rights and claim them all the way in case any harms came to them.

Outcomes after Project Completion

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Students had the opportunity to see and assess practical applications of values such as civil society

and democracy after taking their theoretical education.

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They internalized the “pluralism” principle of democracy by meeting with representatives from

NGOs with different ideologies.

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Realization of a project of this kind in Eregli paved the way for carrying out similar projects throu-

ghout Turkey.

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The participants of 15-17 age groups contributed to their personal developments as well as the

development of democracy culture at social ground by sharing their opinions around democratic values with the public.

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Conclusions and Suggestions Overall Conclusions Overall conclusions that can be deducted for all NGOs are as follows:

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It was seen when analyzing responses given to interviews that NGOs did not do or could not do

their activities to the extent required by democracy.

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In addition to this, the inability to get in contact with 10 out of 20 NGOs communicated for inter-

views for various reasons indicates that most of NGOs are only made up of signboards.

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NGOs do not have youth-oriented projects for the sake of internalizing democratic values. In ad-

dition, they are unable to adequately address youth structurally.

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Cancellation of interviews by some NGOs, with whom no interviews were conducted, after lear-

ning the name of the school students study at shows the presence of civil society approach demonstrated through labeling and stigmatizing. This approach brings polarization together with it and adversely affects the interaction and cooperation among NGOs.

• • •

It was observed that NGO managers were not very open to criticism.

NGO representatives complained about the pressures caused by the central government.

It was concluded that women were not adequately active in NGOs visited.

Sectoral Conclusions Results obtained from 10 NGOs that were identified from 5 different areas can be listed as follows:

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NGOs are not active in the field of education. Many operate as aid agencies. In addition, they do

not have enough projects for the internalization of concepts like democracy at the desired level.

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Businessmen’s Associations are more active than NGOs. However, they do not execute the prin-

ciples of consultation, accountability, and transparency in the strict sense like other NGOs.

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Trade unions are polarized ideologically. Therefore, they prove to be inadequate on the issue of

protecting worker rights as a result of this polarization.

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Political parties, with whom interviews were conducted, do not have any youth-oriented projects

for the internalization of democratic values.

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Demokrat Bireyden Demokratik Topluma From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society

In line with these results, the following suggestions can be offered to NGOs from responses given in interviews and workshops conducted with students: 1.

NGOs should take constructive steps against the pressure from the central government within a

positive framework.

2.

NGOs should be open to critical thinking by keeping consultation at the center.

3.

Women should be able to take active roles in NGOs.

4.

NGOs should be transparent and accountable. Managers should be able to show the virtues of

resigning when required. Nobody should perceive this as a matter of failure/dignity.

5.

NGOs should develop projects aimed at increasing the democracy awareness and NGO participati-

on of the youth.

6.

NGOs should able to come together for the solution of social problems by thinking beyond ideo-

logies when necessary. In particular, unions should be sensitive on this matter.

“From Democratic Individual to Democratic Society” project is very important for students in the name of internalizing values such as democracy and civil society. This kind of practical projects must be spread throughout Turkey. Thus, every student in Turkey will have a practical opportunity to internalize values such democracy and civil society.

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Appendix: Photos from Interviews

A frame from the workshop conducted during the organization of interviews

Alevi Cultural Association Interview (Representative Mehmet Taştan) CENTER FOR

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Eğitim Sevenler Association Interview (Representative Nail Kazlı)

Ereğli Businessmen’s Association Interview (Representative Mehmet Özdemir)

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Ereğli Chamber of Commerce and Industry Interview (Representative Yaşar Tetiker)

Turk-Education Union Interview (Representative Tayfun Öztürk)

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Turk-Metal Union Interview (Representative Hakan Eskibina)

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şammas Salur explained the concepts of democracy and democratization.

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While Istanbul Institute General Secretary Oğuzhan Tekin was promoting the project

Prof. Dr. İhsan Yılmaz put emphasis on civil society concept and its significance

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Assist. Prof. Dr. Engin Şahin delivered a lecture on the Rule of Law and Democracy

Assist. Prof. Dr. İhsan Çolak talked about Turkey’s Political History

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