Youth participation in local politics: city councils and youth assemblies in Turkey

The focus of this study is political participation of youth in local politics in Turkey. Since local politics includes elements from both macro politics and mundane affairs, it proves to be a fertile ground to analyse how youth experience politics. Youth participation in local politics became an important issue in Turkey with the Agenda 21. The Agenda 21 that was launched with the UN Rio Summit was transferred to Turkey in the form of Local Agenda 21 leading to the establishment of city councils and youth assemblies under the umbrella of the councils. We treat city councils and youth assemblies as ‘a lost opportunity’ for now, and we ask why the youth cannot be integrated into local politics, despite the fact that they are willing to participate. Based on the interviews conducted with the members of assemblies, we try to understand the factors that lead to young people’s engagement in political life.     

Attitudes toward Wife Abuse of Police Officers and Judiciary Members in Turkey: Profession,Gender, Ambivalent Sexism and Sex Roles

This study examined the attitudes of police officers and judiciary members toward wife abuse in Turkey and the relation between these attitudes and profession, ambivalent sexism (hostile/benevolent sexism), gender, and gender roles. The following instruments were used for the analyses: The Attitudes Toward Wife Abuse Scale (AWAS), the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), and the Bem Sex Role Inventory. The participants were 300 police officers and 150 judiciary members selected from different regions of Turkey. Results showed that compared to judiciary members, police officers are more tolerant of physical and verbal abuse of women in marriage, but less tolerant of the idea of the victim leaving an abusive marriage partner. Similarly, men were more tolerant than women of those husbands who physically and verbally abuse their wives, but less supportive of the wife leaving the abusive partner. Profession and ambivalent sexism (hostile/benevolent sexism) were found to be the strongest predictors of attitudes toward wife abuse.     

Estimation of Chronological Age from Postmortem Tissues Based on Amino Acid Racemization

Skin and cartilage tissue specimens from 32 male and 13 female corpses aged between 17 and 50 years were collected within 24 h after the death. Each specimen was analyzed for the composition of dextro (D) and levo (L) forms of aspartate, glutamate, and alanine. Linear regression models were constructed using ln [(1 + D/L)/(1 ? D/L] equation to define the relationship between the extent of racemization and the chronological age. Aspartate D/L rates from cartilage showed high correlation (r = 0.779, p < 0.001, n = 45). Aspartate D/L rates from skin showed very low correlation (r = 0.356, p < 0.002, n = 44). The multilinear regression model of both aspartate D/L rates of cartilage and skin tissues in 44 cases yielded a coefficient of r = 0.828 (p < 0.001). In conclusion, only racemization rate of Aspartate both in the skin and the cartilage tissues correlated with the chronological age. Our results may imply that the age can be estimated more precisely if two different tissue specimens are obtained from one corpse.     

Party competition in the Middle East: spatial competition in the post-Arab Spring era

This paper charts the nature of political cleavage between major parties in post-Arab Spring elections in five Mediterranean region countries, with data from online opt-in surveys. We compare the Moroccan elections, held under a consolidated authoritarian regime, with the transitional cases of Tunisia and Egypt as well as the more mature democracies of Turkey and Israel. Voter opinions are obtained on 30 salient issues, and parties and voters are aligned along two dimensions. We trace country-specific cleavage patterns and reflections of party system maturity in these five countries. The cases of Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco reveal that in less settled cleavage structures there is little congruence between vote propensities for parties and agreement levels with policy positions compared to the more institutionalized democracies of Israel and Turkey where voters exhibit a higher likelihood to vote for a party as the distance between the voter and the party in the policy space gets smaller.     

Emulating Erasmus? Turkey’s Mevlana exchange program in higher education

Asia Europe Journal - In today’s world, globalization and internationalization of education necessitate new initiatives to catch the new era. Turkey, as a country in between the east and the...