Dr Dogus Simsek is a Teaching Fellow in Political Sociology at UCL SSEES.

This article was first posted in the Crisis Magazine on 1st of October.

Since 2011, Turkey has received more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees. This is almost half of the global Syrian refugee population. In the early phases of the refugee influx, Turkish authorities framed Syrians as ‘guests’ rather than refugees. Under the assumption that the crisis would end quickly – and Syrians would, therefore, return home after short stay – the country adopted an “open door” policy on Syrian migration. While seemingly hospitable, Syrians’ guest status fell outside any legal definition in international refugee policies. Although Turkey signed the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Additional Protocol on the status of refugees, the country applies a geographical limitation that excluded Syria. For Syrians in Turkey today, this means international asylum rights don’t apply.

What does apply to them is the Temporary Protection (TP) regime the Turkish government adopted in October, 2011. This ensured all Syrians humanitarian assistance and the right to a limitless duration of stay in Turkey. It also confirmed adherence to the principle of non-refoulement, the idea that refugees must not be returned to a country where they would be in likely danger of persecution. Given the dangers of return, this Temporary Protection regime gave Syrians registered as refugees in Turkey access to healthcare and protection from forced return. Managing this scheme became the responsibility of the Turkish Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM), a body that works under the authority of The Ministry of Interior. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of August 2019 there were 3,649,750 Syrian refugees registered in Turkey under this protection program. It’s estimated that an additional 500,000 Syrians are living in Turkey, unregistered.

In April, 2014, Turkey adopted a new Law on Foreigners and International Protection that further elaborated the Temporary Protection status of Syrians in Turkey. This law focused on guaranteeing that Syrians could not be returned to Syria until safe conditions and access to fundamental rights there were guaranteed (non-refoulement). In addition, the rights of Syrian nationals in Turkey came to include lawful stay in Turkey until the Syrian conflict was over. Furthermore, access to health care, education, and social assistance were guaranteed. This even included, for example, home care assistance to families with a disabled relative. Under this law, access to the labour market was also granted as a right, and the task of enforcing this was delegated to the Ministry of Social Security and Work. An additional regulation was then issued in 2016, which allowed registered Syrian refugees to apply for work permits, in a step to formalize Syrian labour and enable access to workers’ rights.

However, accessing work permits remained difficult and depended upon employers’ willingness to offer contracts. As a result, the number of work permits granted to Syrian refugees remains low according to the latest figures made available. From the 1st of January, 2016 to the 30th of September, 2018, only 27,930 work permits were issued to Syrian workers, with 25,457 permits going to men and 2,473 to women. The majority of Syrians in Turkey reside in towns and cities rather than in refugee camps, and their populations are primarily concentrated in the governorates bordering Syria and large metropolitan areas. There, they struggle to access adequate accommodation, social services and job opportunities.

The reality for most Syrians in Turkey remains that they work in an informal economy without social security, faced with exploitation and lack safe working conditions. They are overworked and underpaid, with no social security or pension rights. Syrians primarily work in the largely informal agricultural and textile sectors, and with few safety protections. According to figures from the Worker Health and Safety Council (İşçi Sağlığı ve İş Güvenliği Meclisi), 108 refugees lost their lives in work-related accidents in 2018. In turn, Syrians’ low socio-economic status leads to their relative exclusion from wider Turkish society. Syrians who work in the informal market face difficulties building bridges with the Turkish working class, due to competition over employment opportunities.

The Turkish labour market also poses high exploitation risks for children, given the widespread phenomenon of child labour in areas such as agriculture, textile factories, as well as restaurants in various cities of Turkey. According to a United Metalworkers Union report, the textile sector employs approximately 19% of underage workers. 29% of these underage workers are Syrian children under the age of 15. In fact, the majority of school-aged Syrian children are working instead of attending school. As of 2019, 645,000 Syrian children were enrolled to Turkish state schools, while 400,000 Syrian children in Turkey were out of school. In addition to child labor, various other barriers obstruct access to children’s education, including a lack of parents’ knowledge about school registration procedures and the education system, and discrimination in schools. Findings from my own research indicate that many Syrian refugees experience financial hardship due to having limited access to the labour market, which also has a negative effect on Syrian children’s access to education.

In 2016, it was announced that millions of Syrians living in Turkey would be granted Turkish citizenship. As of 2019, 79,820 Syrians were granted citizenship in Turkey. Granting full citizenship is an important development but it remains unclear whether citizenship would be accessible for all Syrians under Temporary Protection. The deputy prime minister has clarified that ‘citizenship will be granted initially based on criteria such as employment, education level, wealth, and urgency of the applicant’s individual situation.’ This has raised concerns that Syrians who lack economic resources and are less skilled will be denied access to citizenship rights. Such concerns seem founded, as Turkey’s refugee integration policy favours those skilled contributors to the economy and those refugees with access to financial capital. This integration processes excludes refugees who are unskilled and have limited economic resources for investment in the receiving country.

Such a policy does not equally support the integration of all Syrians residing in Turkey but is class-based; only ‘selected’ Syrians are deemed worthy of state support. The Turkish government has pursued a neoliberal approach to the integration of Syrian refugees, where their economic utility has come to form the main entry point for accessing rights. Current integration policies, therefore, undermine Syrian refugees’ access to fundamental rights by making such rights directly conditional to Turkey’s economic gain. Social tensions between the Syrians and Turks have risen to peak levels in recent months, as riots occurred in Istanbul in July this year. As these tensions persist, the rights granted to Syrians will likely face further pressures in the future.

Authors: Olena Yermakova (@O_Yermakova) and Michael Cole (@NotTheMikeCole), Early Stage Researchers for the UCL SSEES-led FATIGUE project

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke” – Will Rogers, American actor 1879-1935

It has been almost a century since American actor Will Rogers made that observation about US politics, yet in Ukraine’s 2019 presidential elections such a description has proved to be even more apt. Often referred to off the record as some kind of ‘Wonderland’, in Ukraine the roles of joker and king are now both being performed by just one person. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a popular comedian, who’s been mocking politicians on stage for the past two decades, is the new President of Ukraine.

Virtual Politics

It all started with a TV show, The Servant of the People, where Zelenskiy plays a history teacher, who following  an impassioned rant against corruption which went viral, much to everyone’s surprise, not least his own, becomes President of Ukraine. The real-life Zelenskiy says in the show he was portraying his pipe dream for Ukraine ─ a dream of an honest man becoming President and really changing the country for the better. Then people around him started talking. Why not try and make that dream come true? Imagine all the Ukrainian people, joining him in that dream? And though Zelenskiy may be a dreamer, after gaining over 73% of the votes in the second round of the Presidential elections, it’s clear he’s not the only one.

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Written by Michael Cole and Olena Yermakova, – Early Stage Researchers for the UCL SSEES-led FATIGUE project
(This post was first published on 21 April 2019.)

Matryoshka Dolls for Sale on Adrivskiy Uzviz, Kyiv. Even here, customers can choose between Darth Vader, a Babushka in National Costume, ‘a Real Politician’ or a comedy character. Photo Credit – Michael Cole 2018

On May 25^th 2014, following the events of Euro Maidan, ‘Chocolate King’ Petro Poroshenko was elected President of Ukraine in the first round of voting. Purely by coincidence, I spent the day visiting the ghost town of Pripyat and the Chernobyl exclusion zone. On the way to our destination we stopped at a service station, which seemed rather busy considering it was at the side of an otherwise deserted highway. The reason for the commotion was a brief visit to use the facilities by another presidential candidate on his way to Kyiv with his death stare firmly set on the main prize. Standing at a urinal next to Darth Vader, leader of the short-lived ‘Internet Party of Ukraine’, was just one of the many times when I realised that every time I start to think I understand, I’m only setting myself up for the next reminder that in Ukraine you really never do know what you’re going to get.

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Photo: Akron/ Wikipedia Commons

East Central Europe’s democratic deterioration is as much  about the limitations of mainstream liberal forces as the rise of illiberal populists argue James Dawson and Sean Hanley.

Less than a decade ago the newer EU member states of East Central Europe (ECE) were considered the great success story of post-communist democratisation. This success was held up by scholars as a textbook illustration of how the EU, through the attractiveness of its political and economic model, and the toughness of accession conditions, could make a decisive difference by empowering pro-European liberals in the region’s shakier democracies to push their countries firmly on track to liberal democracy (and EU membership).

While poorer and more corrupt than the EU’s West European core, ECE was assumed to be a region safe for democracy with good long-term prospects for economic and political catch-up. Today this narrative of democratic progress is dead, replaced by one of democratic backsliding – and even sliding into authoritarianism – under the auspices of populist and nationalist politicians.

What has been especially disconcerting is that it has been the early frontrunners of democratization – Hungary and Poland – where such democratic backsliding has gone farthest and fastest: after winning decisive election victories (Fidesz in Hungary in 2010, Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland in 2015) conservative-nationalist governing parties have moved rapidly to dismantle liberal checks and balances, capturing or neutralising constitutional courts, state agencies, public (and in Hungary private) media and NGOs.

More strikingly still, Fidesz and PiS were not radical outsiders emerging from the fringes, but large right-wing parties once considered part of a pro-Western centre-right mainstream, whose representatives still sit with German Christian Democrats and British Conservatives in the European Parliament. (more…)

Dr Daniel Brett, Teaching Fellow in Social and Political Science, UCL SSEES

(This blog was originally posted on LSE’s Europe Blog on 19 September 2018.) 

Romania has experienced large anti-government protests on multiple occasions in the last few years, most recently in August this year. Yet as Daniel Brett explains, the achievements of these protests have been modest and short-lived, with the country’s ruling Social Democratic Party still maintaining power. He highlights that while the protesters and opposition parties may be united in their opposition to corruption, they have radically different views on social and economic issues, hampering their ability to change the direction of Romanian politics.

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Review by Julia Klimova, PhD candidate at UCL SSEES.

On 16 and 17 of February 2018, School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at UCL hosted an international workshop on “Russia’s Global Legal Trajectories: International Law in Eurasia’s Past and Present”. Organized by Dr. Philippa Hetherington with generous support of the British Academy for Arts and Sciences and Pushkin House, the workshop was dedicated to the history of legal issues in Russia from the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and Russian Federation. The workshop lasted for two days and consisted of 6 panels and the total of 14 speakers. It united historians with legal scholars, which provided a rich basis for discussions of issues of legality at various points in Russian history.

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Dr Ula Chowaniec (Impacts of Gender Discourse Series)

The LGBT History Month, February is almost over, but it is never too late to talk about equality, justice and LGBT issues, especially in regions such as Eastern and Central Europe, where many issues, like same-sex marriage, are still to fight for. This text is based on my Lunch Hour Open Lecture,  that I delivered at UCL on the 5^th of December, 2017 (See below).

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By Dr Elena Nikolova, Lecturer in Economics, UCL SSEES

Both Mauritius and my hometown of Varna, Bulgaria are famous for their sandy beaches. Mauritius, for its five-star resorts on the Indian Ocean. Varna, for its breath-taking Black Sea coast. But Mauritius attracts travellers looking for luxury, while Varna (no less beautiful, by the way) – those looking for cheap sun.[1]

Mauritius is slightly richer than Bulgaria, but not by much. Bulgaria’s GDP per capita (in PPP terms, 2010 constant USD) in 2017 was $7, 967.70, while the corresponding figure for Mauritius is $9,822.0 (World Bank). The Mauritian government has set itself the goal of turning Mauritius in an inclusive, high-income country (with GDP per capita above $14,000) by 2030. If communist-era statistics are to be believed, Bulgaria was actually richer than Mauritius until 1990 or so. However, in recent years the gap between the two countries has widened further (Figure 1).

As of 2017, Mauritius is ranked as number 25 in the Doing Business Database, which measures the ease of doing business in a country based on indicators such as how easy it is to get electricity or resolve insolvency (as a comparison, France’s ranking is 31, behind Mauritius). By comparison, Bulgaria’s ranking is 50. Mauritius is also less corrupt than Bulgaria. Transparency International ranks Mauritius as the 50^th least corrupt country in the world, while Bulgaria occupies 75^th place (this comparison is based on data from 2016). And, Mauritius is a much happier place than Bulgaria: Mauritius is ranked as the 64^th happiest country in the world, while Bulgaria’s ranking is 105 (out of 155 countries, 2017 World Happiness Report).

Figure 1:

Source: World Bank and author’s calculations.

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