Data Collection

My analysis started with an extensive literature review, which included books and articles on Turkish political history, political culture and Turkish civil society as well as Europeanization studies. The former aimed to provide an understanding of the main characteristics of Turkish civil society and identify core events in Turkish political history whereas the latter has allowed perceiving the rationale of EU’s civil society policy and constructing the mechanisms of the EU impact to pursue my fieldwork in Turkey. The objective of my fieldwork was to understand the functioning of civil society, interactions among actors, policy domains and structures, the

relationship with the EU and the reactions of NGOs to these processes, which are historically established at the national level.

To understand the structure and functioning of civil society under investigation, I read NGOs documents⁸ in each of these issue areas and explored their history, mission, organizational structure, supporters, partnerships, international relations/memberships, projects and other activities. This allowed me to understand NGOs organizational structures comprehensively and prepare for the interviews.

Afterwards, I also used these documents for the triangulation of my interviews.

I conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with NGOs representatives, EU and Turkish officials. Semi-structured interviewing has the utility to examine in-depth experiences of the respondents, and understand certain contexts (Rathbun 2008:

686). I conducted interviews because they provide comprehensive information about how individuals experience, perceive and explain the EU processes. I prepared a topic guide⁹ for interviews with NGOs. I structured the topic guide around four themes and questions followed accordingly: organizational structure, and my analytical categories of EU impact- compulsory, enabling, and connective impact. Connective impact is divided into three sub-categories: relations with the state, relations with other civil society organizations, and external relations. The topic guide started with more general questions on organizational structure and moved to particular questions.

Interviews with NGOs were important to understand their opinions, institutional experiences and positions towards the EU processes. Interviews with EU officials from the Delegation of the EU to Turkey were critical for perceiving the EU’s approach to civil society, underlining logic and their experiences with Turkish civil society. Interviews with Turkish policymakers in relevant ministries were significant to understand official positions on the EU accession process and their attitudes towards NGOs during these processes.

I conducted 53 in depth semi-structured qualitative interviews and used methods of purposive sampling and snowballing to select the interviewees (Rathbun 2008: 696). Purposive sampling allowed me choose respondents according to their profiles. Snowballing refers to a method where interviewees recommend others for further interviews for establishing contacts. Intermediary organizations such as the

8 NGOs documents were collected through websites and during the visits to their headquarters. These documents include reports, books, project documents, press releases and pamphlets.

9 Topic guide structuring around main themes of this research is included in the appendix A.1.

Civil Society Development Centre (STGM- Sivil Toplum Geliştirme Merkezi) in Ankara and Diyarbakır also helped me in contacting key respondents.

Most of the interviews were recorded and complemented by extensive notes that were taken during the interviews. I extended my notes after each interview and transcript some parts to use for direct quotations. For confidentiality I made quotations by referring to the names of organizations but did not directly identify names of interviewees. Direct quotations were supplemented by other sources of data for triangulation. In other cases, conclusions drawn from more than one respondent aim to show that the issue was not specific to that organization. Mainly in Diyarbakır, I preferred not to use a voice recorder. During the time of my visit most organizations were under intense scrutiny and most representatives were arrested due to investigations into the Union of Communities of Kurdistan (Kürdistan Topluluklar Birliği-KCK),¹⁰ the alleged urban wing of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan), known by its Kurdish acronym as the PKK. In these cases I took extensive notes to allow respondents to explain as much as possible. Most of the interviews were conducted in Turkish. Where this is not possible, for example in the Delegation of the EU to Turkey, I conducted interviews in English.

The EU documents such as Progress Reports, project fiches and policy documents retrieved from the EU’s official website provided extensive information on the understanding of the EU’s civil society policy, its instruments, and main actors (see Chapter 3). This is significant to show that the EU is shaped by a certain understanding of civil society. The EU documents on civil society policy are selected by a sample of the most important documents that identified from the secondary literature. Moreover, EU documents-Progress Reports and project fiches- are other data that helped me to triangulate interview data by providing multiple sources for the same data. For selection, I first used NGOs documents and interviews to identify the EU projects that they have completed. Then I selected projects fiches accordingly.

10 Anti-KCK operations refer to massive police operations against Kurdish opposition members that were initiated in 2009. The Turkish government justifies anti-KCK operations on the basis that the KCK is an umbrella organization that involves PKK and serves as its political wing. However, a study on the profiles of the defendants shows that the targets of the KCK operations are politicians and activists of Peace and Democracy Party (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi-BDP) affiliated supporters (İlkiz 2012:45).