Turning crisis into opportunity? The Syrian refugee crisis and evolution of welfare policy for refugees in Turkey from a public choice theory perspective

Introduction

Since 2011, Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments in Turkey have been dealing with unprecedented domestic and international dilemmas. The ever-increasing instability in the region turned a relatively stable country into a haven for millions of people fleeing war and violence. The presence of nearly 4 million Syrian refugees in Turkish territories creates popular discontent among Turkish citizens amid economic recession. Today, providing welfare and public services for non-citizens in its territories while preserving its electoral victory is a big challenge for the AKP.

Considering that equitable welfare redistribution among citizens is a prerequisite for electoral victory in democratic systems, this article discusses how social policy and public spending for refugees is justified to the public by the AKP. In that context, this article tries to answer what discourses President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as the leader of AKP, and AKP incumbents use to manipulate the Syrian refugee crisis as a means for their instrumental interests to sustain political power.

Discourse analysis is used to examine two aspects of social policies towards refugees: the strategies, and how they are communicated to the public. First, strategies utilized by the AKP governments to provide services to the refugees are put under scrutiny; and then the political discourses to justify these strategies are analysed. Accordingly, Turkish news articles published between 2012 and 2018 are scanned to gather data. Search engines are used to access public statements by Erdogan and AKP incumbents. The emphasis is put on the main themes of public statements prior to the 2014 presidential election, and the 2015 and 2018 general elections. That way, the evolution of the AKP discourse to secure popular support is tracked. Meanwhile, broader social policy discussion is given as background to understand the dynamics of welfare distribution under AKP governments.

This article investigates social policy developments for Syrian refugees with reference to the literature on Islamist populism employed extensively by AKP governments. Islamist populism is applied to describe a number of AKP policies and positions in welfare redistribution. AKP is well known for its broad popular base which is associated with extensive welfare outreach through cash transfers and Islamic charity. This characteristic also constitutes an important ground to analyse the development of welfare outreach for Syrian refugees.

Public choice theory is employed as a theoretical framework to explore AKP’s policy towards Syrian refugees. Due to the need to get re-elected, welfare distribution for its supporters is one of the critical schemes to be achieved for Erdogan and the AKP. On the other hand, AKP must respond to the needs of refugees who had been welcome through an open-door policy initiated by Erdogan and the AKP itself. When the AKP government opened the door for millions of Syrian ‘brothers and sisters’ eight years ago, as a foreign policy manoeuvre, such chivalry impressed the religious wing of Turkish society. Today, however, amid economic stagnation, many AKP supporters with nationalist sentiments perceive Syrians as privileged parasites feeding on scarce resources or outsiders stealing their jobs. The AKP tries to handle social conflict and popular unrest through twists and turns in political discourse appealing to the immediate concerns of the voters. This phenomenon pertaining to political culture in Turkey will be discussed further in the following sections of this article. In that context, this article also highlights different welfare ideologies that serve the political interest and advantage of the ruling power.

Theoretical framework and background: Public choice and Islamist populism

According to public choice theory, political processes have an important influence upon the determination of social policy. As put by Downs (1998: 137) political parties in a democracy formulate policy strictly as a means of gaining votes. They do not seek to gain office to carry out certain preconceived policies. Rather they formulate policies to gain office. Elected representatives, on the other hand, are motivated in being re-elected by their self-interest to maintain benefits (Van Winden, 1988: 15). In addition, they might also be motivated by irrational ideological obsessions or fear of losing parliamentary immunity. According to the same theory, people will vote for the candidate or political party that they believe is going to give them the greatest access to personal gain. Economic conditions at the time of an election play an important role in electoral choices. Public services and welfare redistribution, therefore, attract popular support for political parties according to this theory.

Despite general scepticism, Turkey is an ‘electoral democracy’ and it is possible to apply public choice theory to the social policies of AKP governments. Accordingly, it can be argued that the social function of AKP politics is merely a by-product of its incumbents’ private motives such as income, power and the prestige of being in power. The link between the interests of the ruling party and its policy to win democratic elections, alternatively ‘ballot box politics’, leads to the utilization of social policy for securing popular support rather than social equality/equity (Alcock and Craig, 2009: 11–13).

When looking into social policies in Turkey from a public policy perspective, it is also important to emphasize the ideological agendas in disguise. Indeed, economic analysis is not always sufficient to provide justifications for cuts and changes in welfare distribution and social services. For instance, the Conservative British government of 1993 deployed a moral discourse to justify their social policy reforms without reference to cost efficiency or social justice. According to Jordan (1995: 365), the social policies of the 1990s were justified with a moral discourse against single parents, crime, drugs, truancy and benefit fraud, although they were suboptimal and unsustainable in terms of costs. President Erdogan and AKP incumbents, likewise, frequently use moral discourse based on Islamic fraternity to justify welfare policies rather than relying on social justice or cost efficiency. For instance, expenditure from the general budget on Syrian refugees is justified by the AKP through the moral obligations of the Turkish state to a Muslim nation suffering under oppression. In that context, political ideologies manipulate morality discourse to execute welfare policies for certain groups. Like the conservative social policy and the moral discourse prevalent in the UK in the 1990’s, AKP utilizes moral discourse based on Islamic fraternity to justify the expansion of benefits for certain groups like refugees in society. This will be discussed in detail below by means of an analysis of the pre-election discourses of the AKP. However, first we need to understand the welfare ideology of the AKP in general.

With the rise of the AKP to power in 2002, a reform process heavily based on neo-liberalism and social conservatism started (Buğra and Keyder, 2006: 213). The social security system under the AKP transitioned from a highly inefficient welfare distribution mechanism to a more efficient ‘egalitarian corporatist’ one. Such transition came along with dramatic reforms expanding the health and old age benefits which used to be hierarchically structured to overprotect the core (civil servants and formal sector employees) and under-protect the periphery (the unemployed and the informally employed in agriculture) (Fargion, 2009; Dedeoglu, 2013; Buğra, 2018).

Early reforms by the AKP in social policy were in the field of health provision. The share of health and education investments by government drastically increased between 2002 and 2011 under AKP rule. Likewise, Social Aid and Solidarity Funds were increased eight times during that period, helping the redistribution of wealth in favour of disadvantaged groups like children, students having economic difficulties and the disabled (Yolcuoğlu, 2012). Municipalities became the most important agents to implement the newly developing populist welfare policies under AKP rule (Erus et al., 2015).

AKP was criticised for acting according to the demands of neo-liberal free market policy rather than fulfilling its pre-election promises to reduce poverty and create greater economic equality. According to some scholars, AKP combined neo-liberal market reforms with targeted clientelism and neo-patrimonialism. Furthermore, it was argued that AKP solely publicized a previous Social Risk Mitigation project which had been designed by the previous coalition government in order to strengthen its own image as a promoter of social assistance (Sener, 2016).

Indeed, despite the success of recent AKP governments in increasing the redistribution of wealth among the poor, financial assistance as welfare benefits is still not a ‘demandable social right’ in Turkey. As mentioned above, several scholars argue that Turkey does not have a rights-based social policy which requires equality/equity based on citizenship. According to Buğra (2018) the current approach to social policy is shaped more by the question ‘how to live with the poor?’ rather than how to create an equal society in contemporary Turkey. Bahçe and Köse (2017) likewise argue that under the AKP governments a new welfare regime emerged, which utilises voluntary public and private transfers to mitigate impoverishment and deprivation. ‘This regime has been distributing these transfers in a very unequal and selective manner’, strengthening paternalist and clientelist relations (Bahçe and Köse, 2017: 589).

Several scholars have defined AKP’s social policies as Islamist populism changing the structure of the political conflict rather than bringing about social equality (Dorlach, 2016; Yilmaz and Bashirov, 2018; Akcay, 2018). ‘In this new structure, power struggles have taken the form of intra-elite conflict, rather than class struggle’ (Akcay, 2018). According to Bora and Çalışkan (2008: 245), between 2003 and 2007 the AKP pursued a policy of ‘dual containment: neo-liberal politics for the rich and pro-Islamist conservatism for the poor’. In that sense, while paving the wave for the capitalist giant corporations, the AKP still represented the oppressed, the poor, and the marginal (Bora and Çalışkan, 2008: 82).

The emphasis on means-tested social assistance became a tool for the extension of Islamist populism and served the ‘the logic of charity’ rather than ‘the logic of citizenship’ (Buğra, 2018). Indeed, the AKP’s social policy regime is based on Islamic references like charity, which is very useful in motivating and mobilizing civil initiatives toward providing social assistance. In line with public choice theory, Yucesan-Ozdemir and Ozdemir (2012) argue that this is not simply a matter of assistance to the poor, but rather a strategy, which is issued in the construction of the political and ideological bonds/links that keep the ruling party in power. Especially the conditional cash transfers (CCT) programmes helped the resurrection of long-lasting patterns of clientelism and the provision of social benefits for political-electoral purposes (Tafolar, 2015). In other words, AKP combined neo-liberalism with clientelism to meet its electoral promise of reducing poverty levels and to maintain its popular support while sticking to a neo-liberal economic programme. According to Sener (2016) CCT also helped the AKP’s conservative agenda to reinforce women’s domestic roles rather than empowering them through employment opportunities and thus creating social equality.

Regardless of such criticism, it is a fact that social expenditures, including conditional cash transfers and in-kind services to the disadvantaged, grew more rapidly than in the other OECD countries in Turkey under AKP rule. AKP social policies benefited mainly low-income elderly, people with disabilities, and families with members with special health problems. Under the AKP rule, ‘the poverty rate (defined as persons living with less than USD 4.3 per day) fell from 13% in 2006 to 1.6% in 2016’ and ‘relative poverty (persons living with less than 60% of median income) decreased from 25% to 21%’ (OECD, 2018: 57).

Grütjen (2006) shows that the predominance of the state and family in social provision was striking during the initial stages of AKP rule. However, as its neo-liberal agenda intensified, the AKP put more responsibility on civil society in the resolution of social issues. Civil society based on Islamic fraternity/brotherhood/sisterhood was accentuated frequently as a mechanism for welfare distribution. Philanthropic religious welfare organisations – mostly called vakifs or civil society organisations (CSO) – represented a third sector as an apolitical domain under the rule of AKP (Kaya, 2015). As charitable Islamic foundations, vakifs had been present throughout republican history, however under the AKP, their primary function was reinstated as supporting the state by providing social services to the poor while not being engaged in rights-based activism on behalf of the oppressed. During the 2000s, vakifs became implicated in disputes about social policy and state and civil society relations. Some scholars argued that social assistance through the vakifs was a manifestation of ‘Islamic charity culture’ (Zencirci, 2015; 548 Arikan, 2013; Şişman, 2017). Accordingly, welfare provision through Islamic vakifs created dependency among the recipients, which in turn helped the Islamic ideology secure more votes.

Until 2016, the AKP had been extensively tolerant to Islamic networks affiliated with non-profit organizations, schools and charity work. However, after a failed coup attempt on 15 July, allegedly planned by a religious group, the Gulen movement, activities of many CSOs were outlawed. While the succeeding emergency law led to more authoritarianism, the AKP revealed its intolerance to other Islamic ideologies. In the post-15 July Turkey, state institutions and AKP affiliated CSOs were reconfigured as the main welfare and service providers. This reconfiguration also had great impact on social policy for Syrian refugees.

In the early stages of the refugee crisis and before the failed coup attempt, AKP governments filled the service gap for the non-camp refugees through CSOs. However, after the failed coup attempt, the AKP started implementing new strategies to provide social welfare and services to the refugees. Excluding several CSOs, AKP put state institutions and affiliated CSOs to the centre of the welfare and service provision for refugees. These developments will be elaborated in the next sections where the strategies – devolution, co-production and institutionalisation – used by AKP governments are explored and the political discourse behind these strategies are analysed.

Syrian refugee crisis, devolution strategy and Islamic fraternity discourse

Turkey was the first of Syria’s neighbours to formally respond to the influx of Syrian refugees when the Government of Turkey declared an open border policy and a protection regime in 2011. Turkey retains a geographic limitation to its ratification of the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention), which means that only those fleeing because of ‘events occurring in Europe’ can be given refugee status. In that context, it is important to underline that the Turkish government avoided using the term ‘refugee’ for Syrians and instead referred to them initially as ‘Syrian guests under temporary protection’. In the approximately 30 camps AFAD (Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Authority) coordinated humanitarian assistance and services including health and education to over 300,000 Syrian refugees. The Turkish government claimed to have spent 5.6 billion US dollars for Syrian refugees as opposed to the 394 million US dollar contribution of the international community by June 2015. Indeed, the Turkish state declared itself the sole responsible body to provide for the diverse needs of refugees in the camps. Health, education and recreation services were available early on, and security was provided by the Turkish security forces inside the camps. Turkey was praised many times by the international community for the high standards of the camps (McClelland, 2014).

In the early stages of the refugee crisis, funding of public services for non-citizens from the public purse was justified through a morality discourse based on the generosity of Turkish people. Islamic fraternity was uttered several times by Erdogan and AKP incumbents to appeal to religious people. Turkish Red Crescent chairman Tekin Kucukali stated that ‘the Turkish red crescent provided several public services for the refugees in camps without any call for foreign support thanks to the compassion of Turkish people’ (Yeni Safak, 2011).

By late 2012 however, it was understood that the crisis was not temporary. Therefore, the AKP’s discourse started changing from Islamic moral obligation for hosting guests to blaming the West for lack of financial support. In one of his public speeches Prime Minster Davutoglu admitted the limitation of the Turkish state by stating that Turkey could not accommodate refugees if their numbers increased and that UN camps should be established within safe zones to be created within Syrian borders (BBC Turkce, 2012).

The camps, however, constituted only the tip of an iceberg as most Syrians were out of the camps, scattered in metropolitan cities like Istanbul. Contrary to the camp settings, the AKP’s policy for urban refugees was based on the devolution of responsibility to CSOs. AKP governments did not declare any official responsibility for non-camp refugees as they did for the encamped ones. In the absence of state response, CSOs and local charities undertook the provision of vital services and complemented the work of UNHCR (Zugasti et al., 2016). For instance, during 2014–2015 the Danish Refugee Council implemented an externally funded project that aimed to provide immediate support to and strengthen the coping mechanisms of vulnerable non-camp Syrian refugees in southern Turkey. Such project focused on identifying and providing monthly cash transfers (in the form of supermarket e-vouchers) to vulnerable households (UNHCR 2016a and 2016b).

In that regard, AKP deflected the burden of caring for the non-camp refugee population onto non-state actors, which weakened the normal connection between territorial sovereignty and state responsibility for people who are present in their territory (Kagan, 2011; 2012). The devolution of state responsibility to non-state actors came to an end in 2016, though. As mentioned earlier, the anti-Western sentiment led by President Erdogan and the extended lack of trust to CSOs in the post 15 July Turkey resulted in the forcible shut down of over 300 CSOs providing services for the massive numbers of Syrian refugees (Allen, 2018). Thus, civil society was no more ‘a pivotal arena for the satisfaction of welfare needs’ for the AKP (Willilam and Johnson, 2010: 73). AKP governments started to implement a new agenda in social policy for Syrian refugees, which would prepare them to eventually become citizens.

Co-production of services and citizenship discourse

Under the 2014 Foreigners and International Protection Act no. 645 Syrian refugees had the right to a legal stay as well as access to basic rights and services, like public education, health, and employment. This in turn meant that tax payer citizens would have to share the public services allocated for themselves with nearly 4 million Syrian refugees. As put by Ekmekci (2017) the dramatic increase in the population of slums and the smaller border towns due to refugee influx created severe burden on health services, both in terms of human resources and logistics. Due to the crowding in hospitals ‘local citizens complained about Syrians consuming health resources and preventing the “true” right holders, Turkish people, from getting access to services when needed’ (Ekmekci, 2017: 7). To diminish this burden, immigrant health centres were established with EU funds. In these centres, Syrian doctors and health care staff work along with the Turkish staff. In a public declaration the Minister of Health Recep Akdag said ‘We gave them some training. We are doing exams. We have seen that they have had good training in general’ (AA, 2017) even though diplomas including medical studies had not been recognized by Turkish authorities prior to the crisis. ¹ Likewise, education services were co-produced through transitional institutions called Temporary Education Centres (Mccarthy, 2018).

The co-production of health and education services by non-citizens had important implications for the future of Turkey and the integration of Syrians as potential citizens. As put by Strokosch and Osbourne (2016), co-production promotes and facilitates integration through the involvement of non-citizen entities at the operation level of public service production. In this sense, co-production offered a route through which Syrian refugees can act as citizens in Turkey, preparing them for actual citizenship. Indeed, President Erdogan’s discourse based on Islamic fraternity started signalling that Syrian refugees would be given citizenship (BBC Turkce, 2016). In 2016, Erdogan revealed the citizenship agenda on a moral discourse underlining that this policy was necessary for the wellbeing of Syrian brethren. The message to be given was that Syrians who are mostly Sunni Muslims are ‘proper’ migrants to be accepted as citizens due to their religious background (Akcapar and Simsek, 2018: 180). However, the idea of citizenship to Syrian refugees was not welcomed by the public including the ossified supporters of the AKP. As put by Arslan (2016), for the first time President Erdogan could not convince AKP’s grassroots supporters on an issue. While a minority of AKP supporters with pure Islamic sentiment accepted the idea, the nationalist majority reacted to such an intention. The popular reaction to the citizenship debate brought a halt to the political discourse presenting the hospitality and generosity of Turkish people as a source of moral pride.

The citizenship route for Syrian refugees resumed after the consolidation of Erdogan’s power as a president through the constitutional referendum in 2017 and the general elections in 2018. However, this time this strategy was presented within a totally different discourse. By 2018 Erdogan and his incumbents replaced Islamic fraternity discourse with self-sufficiency. According to the new discourse Syrians were to be given citizenship because otherwise they would work illegally and thus could not be taxed. Erdogan stated that ‘if they become Turkish citizens at least they will have work and pension rights and thus will be self-sufficient’ (Mynet, 2018). In other words, the idea of citizenship and civil responsibility for Syrians started to be presented as a national economic interest. Erdogan defended his decision to grant citizenship to Syrian refugees as a way to prevent them from becoming a burden on Turkish society. That was in contradiction with his previous emphasis on moral/islamic values. However, not surprisingly, for Erdogan and the AKP all means seem to be permissible to secure votes. The evolution of an economic benefit discourse with reference to public choice theory will be further discussed below.

Institutionalisation of welfare distribution and economic benefit discourse

With the Social Harmonization Assistance Programme (Sosyal Uyum Yardım Programı- SUY) launched in 2016, social welfare distribution for non-citizens gained an institutional character in Turkey. Funded by the European Commission and initiated by the Turkish Red Crescent and the World Food Program (WFP), this programme represents a departure from welfare distribution for Syrian refugees based on voluntary charity. Providing cash support for over 1 million non-camp Syrian people residing in different parts of Turkey, this programme has been built upon the existing architecture and expertise of the Turkish Red Crescent and Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Policy (MoFSP) under the coordination of the Turkish National Disaster Management Authority (AFAD). Under the same programme, The Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) provides an unconditional monthly cash grant through a debit card – known as ‘Kizilay Kart’ (Red Crescent Card) – that can be used in any shop or ATM. The cash support is argued to allow refugees to plan household budget and release them from depending on charity, and thus live in dignity (UNHCR 2016b).

According to Duncan (2014: 34) implementation of social safety nets is ‘a social good produced by public means . . . is legitimate for citizens in a society to produce this gain via their governing institutions, provided that individual rights are not violated in the process and provided that costs to individuals are reasonable.’ Such safety net for non-citizens, however, has created popular discontent among the Turkish citizens. Even though this programme is said to be externally funded, popular reactions are common as all contemporary social conflicts in fact can be traced back to the haves and have-nots. It is not an easy task to justify the distribution of resources to non-citizens while there are many citizens who are living below the poverty line in Turkey amidst an economic crisis.

To prevent popular unrest among Turkish citizens, some civil society representatives known have close ties with the AKP defended the system as being cost-effective and underlined its potential to stimulate the local economy without any reference to basic human rights. The chair of the Refugees Association, which is affiliated with the AKP, responds to the rumours among citizens about monthly government benefits for Syrians on its website as follows:

There is misleading information shared on the social and general media on whether the Syrians have government benefits . . . The information we believe without searching for its source, is in fact not what it seems . . . All the costs regarding implementation of this programme is financed by the European Union member states. With the money allocated, Syrian people contribute to the Turkish economy as they meet their basic needs like accommodation, food, and clothing. Shopping from the market, grocery, and department stores, they contribute to the [economic interests of] Turkish people. Turkey, in fact, literally exports by means of such revenue coming from abroad without establishing a factory, developing technology, or trying to sell a product. If the Turkish Red Crescent happened to be an industrial company, it would have ranked 26th among the top exporters in 2016. (Multeciler Dernegi, 2018)

In that context, justification of social policy evolved from being moral to being in favour of the economic interests of the voters as purported public choice theory. This justification however, is far from reflecting the realities. In fact, an ethnic Syrian/Arab market has been created and is expected to grow continuously. As shown in the extract below, the consumption habits of the Syrian people show their preference for an Arabic ethnic market, which means little economic benefit for the Turkish trade.

Top reason behind choosing the shopping place is ‘purchase the cheapest’ (79%). Still, the secondary cause determining the consumption behaviour is the habits. 58% of the Syrians (64% in the West) says ‘No matter what, if I find the brand I use in Syria I always prefer that one’. Additionally, an important 70% of the refugees state that ‘Arabic explanation on the packages are very important for me’. (INGEV, 2017: 5)

Amidst an economic recession, Turkish citizens are increasingly perceiving Syrian refugees as a threat for sharing the scarce resources. It is highly likely that no justification for welfare distribution to non-citizens will be sufficient to prevent popular unrest so long as the economic crisis continues. Aware of that fact, Erdogan, with electoral concerns, has ceased to boast about the services provided and the 20–30 billion dollars spent for the refugees in his political discourse (Euronews, 2018).

When looked from a statist perspective, the link between territorial sovereignty and state responsibility was re-established through ESSN and the Turkish state has been put back on track as the main decision maker about to whom to distribute welfare through means tested assistance. Indeed, although funded by the EU, it is the Turkish authorities under the coordination of MoFSP that decide which Syrians in Turkey are to benefit from ESSN (Gurcanli, 2016).

According to government sources, in the June 2018 general elections, 22,000 Syrians with recent Turkish citizenship had the right to vote (Multeciler Dernegi, 2019). In less than a year, during the March 2019 local elections, on the other hand, nearly 54,000 Syrians as naturalized Turkish citizens were entitled to vote (Multeciler Dernegi, 2019). In these local elections, AKP went into a coalition with the Nationalist Movement Party, adopting an unprecedented nationalistic overtone to win the electoral support of the ultra-nationalists. With such nationalist overtone on the rise, how the nature of welfare discourse for Syrian refugees will evolve would not be difficult to answer before the next general elections. It is clear, Erdogan has long quit the Islamic fraternity and moral obligation discourse initially adopted and has started referring to the refugees as a ‘burden on the Turkish state’ in his public speeches criticising Washington’s pro-Kurdish Syria policy (CNN Turk, 2019). The ‘inclusion’ or ‘living in harmony’ ethos around social policies for refugees has perished, while preventing the establishment of a Kurdish state in its southern border thrives in Erdogan’s political discourse around Syrian refugees. It is likely that the nationalist tone will intensify, while the Syrian refugees are utilized as a foreign policy tool. Unfortunately, Erdogan’s threats to let Syrian refugees into the West, unless safe zones are set up in the North Syria is one of the harbingers of polarization between the citizens and the Syrian refugees in Turkey.

Conclusion

This article investigated the social policies of AKP governments for Syrian refugees from a public choice perspective. The analysis of three distinct service and welfare provision strategies and political discourses justifying the strategies employed by AKP governments demonstrates that welfare policies for Syrian refugees have changed over time, in line with the ballot box politics to win electoral victory.

The transition of the social policy discourse related to Syrian refugees from morality/Islamic fraternity to economic benefits/self-sufficiency indicates that the policy and practice with regards to Syrian refugees in Turkey have little to do with altruism. It is rather the AKP’s electoral interests that determine social policy making for Syrian refugees.

AKP’s social policy towards refugees was gradually being replaced with “the necessity to send them back” by the time this article was written. The discourse is likely to change again to secure electoral victory depending on what coalitions AKP gets into. In that respect, the ever changing political discourse of Erdogan and the AKP is a good example of how welfare policies for non-citizens might be used for pragmatic political interests.

In the shadow of the current economic recession, more social conflict is inevitable in Turkey. It is difficult to say whether the AKP will have another electoral victory, however President Erdogan has so far been successful in turning the refugee crisis into an opportunity to stay in power.

Turkey as a nation state by constitution provides welfare for its citizens. Exploring welfare policies for Syrian refugees as non-citizens was therefore important due to the unprecedented dynamics involved. This is the first time in the history of modern Turkey when social policies are tailored for a linguistically and culturally different entity. This fact is likely to create more controversy considering the presence of other ethically and linguistically diverse communities in Turkey. Migration trends show that Turkey will continue to be an immigrant receiving country. Considering the historical blindness of the Turkish nation-state to the disadvantaged conditions of certain ethnic minorities, how social policy should be designed for new immigrant groups in Turkey is a question that deserves further study.