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ABSTRACT
The professionalization effect of foreign funding is one of the prominent issues in the critical literature on donor/recipient relations. Despite growing attention on this topic, the link between European Union (EU) funding to Turkish civil society organizations (CSOs) and their professionalization remain understudied. This article fills this gap. Drawing on an original set of interviews with leaders of 45 CSOs in Turkey, this article finds that EU-funded projects have not led to the professionalization of Turkish CSOs. This article suggests several reasons for this and also discusses the broader impact of EU funds in relation to CSO’s professionalization.
Acknowledgement
The author is grateful to Büke Boşnak, Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Note on contributor
Özge Zihnioğlu is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul. She researches and publishes on Turkish civil society, European Union (EU) civil society support, and Turkey-EU relations. She is the author of European Union Civil Society Policy and Turkey: A Bridge Too Far? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She received the Young Scientists Award from the Science Academy in 2015 and the Encouragement Award from the International Relations Council in 2018. Dr. Zihnioğlu is a member of Carnegie Endowment’s Civic Research Network.
Notes
1 Salamon, “The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector.”
2 The terms ‘West’ and ‘Western’ in this article denote major Western donor countries, organizations and private institutions.
3 Hearn, “African NGOs,” 1096.
4 Edwards and Hulme, “Too Close for Comfort.”
5 Choudry and Kapoor, Learning from the Ground Up; Henderson, “Selling Civil Society”; Alvarez, “Advocating Feminism”; Howell and Pearce, Civil Society and Development; Lang, “The NGOization of Feminism”; Mercer, “NGOs, Civil Society and Democratization”; and Prakash and Gugerty, Advocacy Organizations.
6 In this article, CSO is used as an overarching term to denote a non-profit and voluntary organization of people outside of market, state and family working for a common purpose.
7 Cumming, “French NGOs,” 89, and Fowler, “The virtuous spiral,” 105.
8 Korten, “The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations,” 36.
9 Alvarez, “Advocating Feminism,” 185.
10 Banks et al., “NGOs, States, and Donors Revisited.”
11 Youngs, The European Union, and Youngs, “What Has Europe Been Doing?”
12 Jacobsson and Saxonberg, Beyond NGO-ization.
13 Kurki, “Governmentality and EU Democracy Promotion”; Kurki, “Democracy through Technocracy”; Kurki, Democratic Futures; and Mühlenhoff, “Funding Democracy?”
14 Rumelili and Boşnak, “Taking Stock.”
15 Kubicek, “Political Conditionality”; İçduygu, “Interacting Actors”; Ketola, Europeanization and Civil Society; and Zihnioğlu, “‘The ‘Civil Society Policy’.”
16 Kaliber, “De-Europeanisation of Civil Society,” and Boşnak, “Europeanisation and De-Europeanisation.”
17 Mühlenhoff, “Funding Democracy?”, and Zihnioğlu, “European Union Civil Society Support.”
18 Kuzmanovic, “Project Culture,” and Ergun, “Civil Society in Turkey.”
19 Pfeffer and Salancik, “The External Control.”
20 Faulkner, “International Strategic Alliances,” 16.
21 Pfeffer and Salancik, “The External Control,” 177.
22 Yanacopulos, “The Strategies That Bind,” 97.
23 Hatch, Organization Theory, 78.
24 Froelich, “Diversification of Revenue Strategies.”
25 Hearn, “African NGOs,” 1096.
26 Edwards and Hulme, “Too Close for Comfort.”
27 Choudry and Kapoor, Learning from the Ground Up; Henderson, “Selling Civil Society”; Alvarez, “Advocating Feminism”; Howell and Pearce, Civil Society and Development; Lang, “The NGOization of Feminism”; Mercer, “NGOs, Civil Society and Democratization”; and Prakash and Gugerty, Advocacy Organizations.
28 Alvarez, “Advocating Feminism.”
29 Jad, “NGOs.”
30 Roy, “The NGO-ization of Resistance.”
31 Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
32 Paternotte, “The NGOization of LGBT Activism.”
33 Kapoor, “Social Action.”
34 Sinwell, “From Radical Movement”.
35 Hearn, “The ‘Uses and Abuses’.”
36 Hulme and Edwards, “Too Close for Comfort.”
37 Banks et al., “NGOs, States, and Donors Revisited.”
38 Grassroots organizations are self-organized group of local people working voluntarily to find solution to problems in their community.
39 Alvarez, “Advocating Feminism.”
40 Gupta, “From Demanding to Delivering Development”; Roy, “The Indian Women’s Movement,” 102; Roy, “The NGO-ization of Resistance.”
41 Biekart, The Politics of Civil Society Building.
42 Howell and Pearce, Civil Society and Development; Kihika, “Development or Underdevelopment”; and Mercer, “NGOs, Civil Society and Democratization.”
43 Alvarez, “Advocating Feminism”; Armstrong and Prashad, “Exiles from a Future Land”; Jad, “The NGO-isation of Arab Women’s Movement”; Choudry, “Global Justice”; and Kamat, “The Privatization of Public Interest.”
44 De Schutter, “Europe in Search of Its Civil Society,” 206.
45 Zihnioğlu, European Union Civil Society Policy, 52–53.
46 Choudry and Kapoor, “Introduction,” 14.
47 Roy, “The NGO-ization of Resistance.”
48 Hulme and Edwards, “NGOs, States and Donors,” 6.
49 Banks et al., “NGOs, States, and Deonors Revisited,” 710.
50 Hearn “African NGOs.”
51 Ergun “Civil Society in Turkey,” 514, and Rumelili and Boşnak, “Taking Stock,” 135.
52 Paker et al., “Environmental Organisations,” 770–771.
53 Kuzmanovic, “Project Culture,” 436.
54 CFCU is responsible for the procedural operations for distributing nearly all EU funds under IPA in Turkey. Exception to this are the small number of programs run by the Human Resources Development Programme Authority established 2012 and EU Delegation in Ankara. The impact of their non-inclusion into sampling is minimal since CFCU’s database provides a sufficiently comprehensive list of CSOs benefited from EU funds.
55 Together with its 2007–2013 budget, the EU’s financial assistance mechanism for the candidate and potential candidate countries were consolidated under a single framework called Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA).
56 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Turkey-EU Financial Cooperation.”
57 European Commission, Civil Society Dialogue.
58 European Council, Regulation No 1085/2006, Title I, Article 2; European Commission, The Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges, Sections 3.2 and 3.5; European Commission, Civil Society Dialogue, 2.2.3.1.
59 European Commission The Roots of Democracy, 3.
60 The EU’s pre-accession financial assistance instrument providing financial and technical support to Turkey’s political and economic reforms during the accession process.
61 Ministry for EU Affairs, 53.
62 Central Finance and Contracts Unit, “Grants Database.” See Youngs and Küçükkeleş, New Directions for a detailed summary of recent EU support programs to CSOs and other civic actors in Turkey.
63 Interview, CSO 41.
64 The interviewee refers to social security and means officially employed.
65 Interview, CSO 23.
66 Interview, CSO 38.
67 Interview, CSO 34.
68 See Roy, “The NGO-ization of Resistance”; Ergun “Civil Society in Turkey,” 514; and Rumelili and Boşnak, “Taking Stock,” 135.
69 Interview, CSO 18.
70 Interview, Hale Akay.
71 Interview, CSO 4.
72 See for instance World Values Survey, European Social Survey and International Social Survey Programme of OECD; World Map of Interpersonal Trust.
73 Third Sector Foundation, “Sivil Toplum İzleme Raporu,” and Charities Aid Foundation, “World Giving Index.”
74 Interview, CSO 4.
75 Interview, CSO 22.
76 Hulme and Edwards, “NGOs, States and Donors.”
77 Interview, CSO 1.
78 Interview, Sevgi Kunt Açan.
79 Paker et al., “Environmental Organisations,” 770–771.
80 For example interviews CSO 14, CSO 23, CSO 43.
81 Interview, CSO 43.
82 Interview, CSO 34.
83 Interview, CSO 35.