Foreign policy orientation of Turkey's pro-Islamist parties: A comparative study of the AKP and Refah

This study aims to discuss the foreign policies of the pro-Islamist parties in Turkey by comparing the party programs and policies of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) and the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi). By focusing on programs and policies separately, it is argued that pro-Islamist elements in the establishment and program of the parties do not necessarily translate to actual policies, particularly in foreign affairs. Moreover, pro-Islamist political parties are not monolithic in terms of member composition; the parties also differ from each other. Finally, the parties might have different policies in the domestic context while employing a more pragmatic and traditionalist perspective in terms of foreign policy

Social welfare changes under inflation targeting in Turkey

Para politikalarının amacı sosyal refahı maksimize etmektir. Bu doğrultuda merkez bankaları fiyatlarda sosyal refahı maksimize etmek amacıyla, fiyat istikrarını sağlamayı hedeflemektedirler. Çağdaş para politikası fiyatlarda istikrarı sağlama görevini enflasyon hedeflemesi ile yürütmektedir. Enflasyon hedeflemesi bir yandan fiyatlarda istikrarı sağlarken bir yandan da reel değişkenlerde dalgalanmaya yol açar. Bu çalışmada da TCMB’nin enflasyon hedeflemesi politikası ile beraber arz ve talep şokları karşısında sosyal refahın maksimize edilip edilmediği araştırılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda enflasyon hedeflemesi altında sosyal refahın maksimize edildiği saptanmıştır.The aim of the monetary policy is to maximize the social welfare function. Central banks, in order to maximize the social welfare in prices, have aimed to provide the stability of price. The contemporary monetary policy carries out the duty of providing the stability of prices with the inflation targeting. Not only does the inflation targeting provide the stability of prices but also it causes the fluctuation in real variables. In this paper, whether the social welfare function is maximized or not is investigated by the policy of CBRT inflation targeting policy and supply and demand shocks. At the end of the research, it is found that under the inflation targeting the social welfare is maximized

A tale of two mayors: Courts and politics in Iran and Turkey

Countries such as Iran and Turkey do not fit comfortably into the democratic and authoritarian categories. In these countries, elections are held regularly, and the will of the people is accepted as one source of sovereignty. At the same time, both constitutionally and in practice the elected officials have to share the exercise of political power with institutions that do not draw their power directly from the will of the people. In such systems, the judiciary has two important political functions. First, the judiciary acts as a politically insulated decision-maker through which the unelected head can exercise some degree of control over the actions of the elected head. Second, the judiciary's direct involvement in the political arena increases political tensions and legitimates the continuation of the two-headed system. In systems based on divided sovereignty, the tensions created by the judicialization of politics contribute to the stability of the regime. The first two sections of the article develop the theoretical framework of the study. I will then look at the constitutional structures of Iran and Turkey and discuss the role assigned to the judiciary in the two systems. The final section examines the politically important court cases of Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan, a former mayor of Istanbul (1994-98), and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhussein Karbaschi, a former mayor of Teheran (1990-98). However, at the outset I should point out that my interest is not in establishing the guilt or innocence of the individuals involved. Rather, I hope that the analysis provided here will shed some light on the role of the judiciary in the politics of countries with two-headed executives. © 2004 Cambridge University Press

Measuring relative performance of banking industry using a DEA and TOPSIS

One of the primary concerns in banking industry is to measure the relative importance of banking industry using popular multi criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques such as data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In this paper, we use these two MCDM techniques to measure the relative efficiencies of 16 private and governmental banks in terms of electronic payment. There are three inputs with DEA methods including the number of issued cards, the number of ATM machines and the number of POSs and there are two outputs including the number of successful ATMs and the number of successful POSs transactions. The proposed study of this paper uses the necessary data of one of Iranian provinces and the results of the implementation of DEA and TOPSIS have indicated that 9 out of 16 banks were efficient. Our study also indicates that mean of relative efficiency for private banks was 82% while this number was 75% for governmental banks

Sosyal koruma harcamalarinin yapay zeka degerlendirme tekniklerinden girdap optimizasyon algoritmasi araciligi ile maliyet analizi

Today, it has been arguing about the limits of welfare models in which ongoing discussions are on the fight against poverty and deprivation play an important role. What should be the role of government? May the implementations of welfare models face with crisis? Is it possible to set socioeconomic limits to the level of redistribution which is being set by welfare state implementations and financing practices? What should be the role of government about social protection implementations which are being applied for the disadvantaged groups who forced to fight poverty and deprivation. All these questions require an comprehensive analytical study on social protection implementations. The role of social protection expenditures which can be a criteria to test the meaning of ''social'' concept in social state on social solidarity, its level in public social protection spendings and predictability of beneficiariers' social protection costs to social state are very important issues to provide sustainability.The aim of the study is to interpret the optimization and measurement of the efficiency of the effectiveness of social protection expenditures with the vortex optimization algorithm from artificial intelligence evaluation techniques which is a different and contemporary technique. The results of the study on social protection expenditure in Turkey has concluded that the optimization.peer-reviewe

Islamic political identity in Turkey: rethinking the West and westernization

Ihsan D. Dag