Why keep complying?: compliance with EU conditionality under diminished credibility in Turkey

The widely accepted external incentives model of conditionality (EIM) argues that the rewards promised by the EU need to be credible for target states to comply with costly EU conditions. Accordingly, compliance should come to a halt or decline significantly in countries where the credibility of accession – the most powerful reward used by the EU – is very low. The case of Turkey appears therefore to present a puzzle, since the current AKP government is still complying with costly EU conditions despite the negative signals from the most powerful member-states and the EU general public. This thesis first establishes that there is indeed a puzzle. The quantitative and qualitative data gathered on formal and behavioural compliance demonstrates that credibility is not a necessary condition for compliance. There are absolutely no signs of decline in compliance, which challenges the EIM’s credibility assumption. The second part of this thesis moves to consider why the Turkish authorities continue to comply under diminished credibility. It finds that the AKP makes strategic use of EU conditionality. Firstly, compliance with EU conditions serves to curb the powers of the Kemalist/secularist establishment and thereby to secure the party’s continued presence. Secondly, compliance helps the government to appear as a Western, reformist, moderate and neo-liberal party to the electorate so as to widen its domestic support. Moreover, lock-in effects of Turkey’s already established pro-European foreign policy, together with issue-specific costs/benefits, also inform the AKP’s decision to comply, albeit to a lesser extent. Finally, this thesis analyses the role of the EU-related bureaucracy as a separate, but limited, actor in the compliance process. In contrast to the political leadership, strong organisational lock-in effects and a high level of social learning motivate bureaucratic agents’ further compliance, which suggests there is a specific bureaucratic politics of compliance at work in Turkey

Aligning Of Carbon Nanotubes With An External Electric Field To Improve Thermal Conductivity Of Polydimethylsiloxane Nanocomposites Interface Material

Advancements in the semiconductor industry have lead to the miniaturization of components and increased power densities, resulting in thermal management issues. In response to this shift, finding multifunctional materials with excellent thermal conductivity and tailored electrical properties are becoming increasingly important. For this research thesis, the effect of an external electric field on aligning of carbon nanotubes was studied to develop and characterize thermally conductive polymer composites. A CNT/PDMS composite was prepared and an external electric field at various degrees was introduced during the curing to promote the carbon nanotubes alignment. The possibility of improving the thermal conductivity by introducing and aligning polymer fibers in the composites was investigated. The composites were characterized with respect to their physical, thermal, and electrical properties to propose possibilities of application in the electronic packaging industries. Experimental results reveal that the resulting nanocomposites exhibit anisotropic properties with significantly improved electrical and thermal conductivities in the alignment direction

[Congreso sobre enseñanza obligatoria y gratuita de países árabes : en el segundo escaño de abajo arriba, ocupando los lugares segundo y tercero de derecha a izquierda, Sid Mohammed Azimán y don José Bermejo, representantes de la Zona Jalifiana en dicho Congreso]

Hemiciclo con los asistentes del congreso destacando, en la primera fila, sid Mohammed Azimán y José BermejoTítulo tomado de la anotación en el álbumDatos tomados del sello del fotógrafo al versoEsta fotografía aparece reproducida en: Historia de la acción cultural de España en Marruecos (1912-1956). Tetuán : Editora marroquí, 1956Sello del fotógrafo al vers