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Jessica Leigh Doyle is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University. Jessica holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from University College Dublin, Ireland. Her doctoral research was concerned with exploring the role of civil society organizations in advancing democratization in the Middle East North Africa region. Her primary research interests include the role of civil society in processes of democratization; issues of gender equality and women’s rights; minority representation in politics; and the impact of the state and supranational institutions on civil society, democratization and women’s rights.
Unregistered Women's Organizations in Turkey: Preliminary Insights
The omission of unregistered and informal organizations/groups means that the research and analysis of civil society to date has excluded a whole area of civil society organizations (CSOs). This essay discusses the findings from structured interviews with a small cohort of (mostly Kurdish) unregistered women’s organizations in Turkey regarding their sources of funding and their engagement with the political system.
Support for civil society and civil society organizations (CSOs) has been an integral part of endeavors by most major policy makers to advance democratization across the globe, with particular emphasis on the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region since the late 1980s. The role envisaged for CSOs within this context is to increase government accountability, filter the interests of ordinary citizens into policy processes, and advance democratization generally, this process is often connected with human rights and social progress. This essay investigates how this vision of civil society is constituted in the case of Turkey, using empirical evidence gathered through 38 in-depth qualitative interviews with women’s organizations from across the political, religious, and geographical spectrum.
