Policy translation in Turkish disability policy: The role and limitations of international organisations

The evolution of the models of disability and the emergence of disability mainstreaming

Policy responses to the challenges involving diverse needs and problems of disabled people have been notoriously rationalised on the basis of the predominant perspective on disability. The concept of disability mainstreaming has emerged as a result of the shift from the perspective of disability as an individual fault to a societal problem over time. This perspective is moulded by models of disability emphasising the medical, social and universalist aspects of disability.

The predominant model, the medical model of disability, dates back to the mid-19th century with the advancement of scientific medical knowledge (Hughes, 1998: 60). It views disability as an individual problem that needs medical intervention in order to cure, ameliorate, or care for it (Mertens et al., 2011: 228). This viewpoint was strengthened by the increase in the industrialisation process stimulated by the capitalist order. In particular, the aftermath of the Second World War ushered in the perception of disabled people as a loss of productivity. The labour force shortage necessitated the participation of disabled people and maimed soldiers in the labour force. The normalisation was designed as a comprehensive strategy aimed to ‘regain’, ‘retain’ or ‘develop’ the ability to live independently as much as they could (Moser, 2000).

The predominance of the medical model in social policies influenced the design of basic eligibility criteria for compensation benefits for workers, disability insurance, supplemental security income and incapacity benefits. Significantly, these actions have also been designed to deliver social assistance to disabled people not because of the necessity of improving the quality of life on the basis of the advancement of human rights for disabled people, but because of demonstrating their helplessness and dependency on society as charitable objects.

In the 1990s, the failure to see disability as a human rights issue led to DPOs, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom, to promote a shift of emphasis onto the societal role in disability, the social model (Hughes, 1998: 77). The social model supports the view that disability is a socially constructed experience that establishes a relationship between people with impairments and a disabling society. The main problem disabled people experience does not stem from the impairments themselves. However, the main reason for the segregation of disabled people is a society that produces policy with attitudinal and physical barriers to the full participation of disabled people in every aspect of life. To remove these barriers, according to Shakespeare (2010: 268), social model thinking urges governments to ensure effective implementation of anti-discrimination legislation and to prioritise independent living for all disabled people.

The incremental impact of globalisation coupled with increased migration has necessitated inclusion of characteristics of diversity in policies through implementing the policy strategy of mainstreaming. Identity politics in the 1980s highlighted the importance of the investigation of the difference and the equality perspective critically resulted in the adoption of mainstreaming (Squires, 1999: 129–134). The role of women’s movements in this adoption was important. The predominant understanding of women characterised as white, heterosexual, middle class, educated and western was protested on the basis that such an understanding failed to consider the diversity of women intersecting with sexuality, race and class. As a result, the first examples of mainstreaming as a policy strategy were inserted into the policy documents of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank to include a gender perspective in development assistance programmes in the early 1980s (Shaw, 2005: 260).

This trend has led to disability being addressed as a diverse attribute of the universal human condition. The emergent need to reflect the complexity of disability through reconsidering impairment as a continuously evolving and interactive process in policy actions, as the social model fails to do, has resulted in attempts to devise a new model of disability. The understanding of impairment as a universal and diverse characteristic of humanity, the universalist disability model, highlights the importance of the contribution of the issues of gender, race, age, sexuality, and class to impairment experience. The eclectic picture of disability derived from the understanding of disability in the previous models has come into existence in the International Classification of Functioning (ICF) developed by WHO to guide governments to direct disability policies. It approaches impairment neither as simply medical nor as simply social but as a dynamic interaction between health conditions and contextual factors, both personal and environmental (Bickenbach et al., 1999).

The twin-track approach has been used to ensure disability mainstreaming. The term ‘twin-track approach’ was initially used in the realm of disability by the UK Department for International Development to establish a link between disability and the development agenda (DFID, 2000). United Nations Economic and Social Council (2008: 3) defines disability mainstreaming as

the process of/strategy for integrating concerns and experiences of disabled people into all dimensions of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes at all political, economic and societal levels in order to bring to fruition full participation of disabled persons in every aspect of life.

Disability mainstreaming in the policies of IOs (1980–1999)

The policy orientation followed by IOs has determined the roles played by IOs and domestic actors in policy translation. IOs’ approaches to disability mainstreaming have historically evolved during the time span considered here, reflecting a possible increase in their areas of influence in domestic policies.

IOs had a propensity to promote selective policy aspects including disability prevention, rehabilitation and employment in countries. The adoption of United Nations (UN)-based policy initiatives and the need to renew organisational structures gradually helped to shift their focus to include a disability perspective in all policies. The period saw increased lobbying by DPO’s to influence the UN to promote human rights for disabled people. ⁶ Their success was evident in the UN’s declaration of 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons and the adoption of the United Nations Decade of Disabled People (1983–1992). The adoption of the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons by the UN General Assembly ⁷ on 3 December 1982 was a key outcome of the International Year of Disabled Persons. These initiatives led to the official adoption of disability mainstreaming in all UN policies (United Nations, 2015).

United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) focus, however, continued to be dominated by a selective approach, focused on the prevention and rehabilitation of childhood disabilities (UNICEF, 1985). This reflected in part donors’ increasing demands for high impact interventions (LaFond, 1994: 344–345). The selective approach to disability was also prominent in the WHO’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which characterised disability as a permanent status that required medical treatment (UNICEF, 2001). In 1984, UNESCO’s initial attempt to promote the inclusion of a disability perspective in education policies was suspended when the United States withdrew from UNESCO.

In 1987, the unsatisfactory result of the Mid-Decade Review of the United Nations Decade of Disabled Persons resulted in the expansion of IOs collection of disaggregated data on disability, particularly after the adoption of the 1989 Tallinn Guidelines for Action on Human Resources Development in disability. This led to increased interaction among IOs, for example, the UNDP, WHO and UNICEF launched the IMPACT programme to tackle preventable disabilities at the global level. However, they continued to focus on prevention, rehabilitation and employment.

In 1991, the fall of the communist regimes resulted in an increase in health inequality and mortality rates in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (Bobak et al., 2007). This prompted the IOs to renew their organisational structure and to rethink their agenda. They were influenced by the “Washington Consensus” promoted by the World Bank and the UNDP, which involved privatisation and state deregulation of welfare service provision including disability (Stiglitz, 2000).

This reassessment led to expansion of the UNDP’s mandate (Bhouraskar, 2013) and a strategic approach to tackle diverse needs of disabled people for the first time (Kienbaum & Partners, 1991: 12). The UNDP took the strategic lead in the Comprehensive Disabled Afghans’ Programme (1991–2004), in collaboration with the ILO, WHO and UNESCO (Emmerij et al., 2005: 231). The project aimed to increase participation of disabled people in multiple mainstream areas. It did not however result in efforts to develop DPO capacity or encourage national governments to adopt and implement national disability strategy.

In 1993, the adoption of the UN Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (the Standard Rules) led to the introduction of a mechanism to monitor the efforts of State Parties and IOs to improve the situation of disabled people. The Standard Rules called for greater emphasis on the inclusion of a disability perspective in all policies, in tandem with an increasing demand for the inclusion of a gender perspective by women’s nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).

The Special Rapporteur on disability’s report on monitoring the implementation of the Standard Rules in 1997 highlighted the failure of the UNDP, the World Bank and regional development banks to insert a disability perspective into their activities (United Nations, 1997). This resulted in increased interaction among IOs to adopt disability mainstreaming on the basis of human rights for disabled people. For example, the Education for All Fast Track Initiative, a global partnership involving UNESCO, the World Bank and UNICEF, aimed to help low-income countries to ensure that every child received a good quality primary education.

A policy shift of IOs towards the inclusion of a disability perspective in policies was initiated during the time period. However, the prominent approach of IOs to disability was based on selective policy aspects including disability prevention, rehabilitation and employment.

Policy translation

Policies follow a cycle of move and evolve. This nonlinear movement of policies can be both horizontal (from/to national to/from local political actors) and vertical (from/to IOs to/from member states) (Peck and Theodore, 2015: 3). This dynamic process, as opposed to a static position, continues irrespective of any borders and boundaries (Clarke et al., 2015). Peck and Theodore (2015: 28) highlight the importance of the social and political practices that influence policies while they are moving. By comparison, the framework of Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) focuses on the rational choice of policy actors in policy translation rather than looking at how socio-political factors change policies in this process. For example, different levels of socioeconomic change could lead governments to include diverse needs of underrepresented groups into policies. In this respect, they could establish some form of voluntary bilateral or multilateral transfers that provide good practice examples to generate effective policy responses to the challenge. However, the rational choice of policy actors cannot explain the complex process of policy translation per se: when policies travel from one site to another, from global context to national context or vice versa, they interact with different social and political practices, culture and are then transformed to be more suitable for a new set of conditions in the destination (Clarke et al., 2015: 16; Kingfisher, 2013: 3). The occurrence of policy translation tends to be ‘accidental’, ‘unstructured’ and less likely than ‘rational’ (Dolowitz et al., 2012; Weyland, 2006: 6). This suggests that policy translation is not a ‘perfect process of transmission’ (Stone, 2017) as it is ‘an open-ended process’ that often yields something new, a ‘hybrid’ of the originally formulated policy through interpretation of information and experience (De Jong, 2013). Policy translation is a form of selective policy learning process, which is pragmatic, variable, and context dependent (Stone, 2017). It is also a ‘trial and error’ process on the basis of learning from mistakes and trying to correct them by re-‘assembly’ of the policy (Little, 2012: 11; Prince, 2010).

Considering the characteristics of policy as an unfinished product, the world polity contributes to the understanding of how increasing connections and interrelationships among states intertwined with social culture and political practices could result in translating IOs’ policy scripts. Despite its special emphasis on larger social and political practices than policy actors in policy translation (Tag, 2013: 30), the role of IOs in this translation has not been undermined in the theory. IOs can play a direct role by easing the process of adopting policy, particularly when states cannot translate the policies due to challenges arising from political conflict and a lack of practice, funding and know-how (Meyer et al., 1997). IOs’ policies can also travel by different unofficial ways (Kingfisher, 2013: 3). For example, domestic policy actors can take the initiative of the policy translation only because of their participation in global meetings. This inspirational influence of IOs can lead to IOs’ policy scripts travelling across sites and through domestic policy actors.

IOs as policy actors

IOs are in a powerful position to orchestrate the direction of world politics. Despite this, there is a lack of clear understanding of their operation, motives and evolution (Keohane, 1988: 393). IOs use different mechanisms, tools and methods to influence domestic actors to realise policy translation at the domestic scale throughout the policy-making cycle including the agenda-setting, implementation and monitoring stages (Greenhill, 2010; Jacoby, 2006; Radaelli, 2003). Dolowitz and Marsh (1996) identify two forms of policy translation, ‘voluntary’ and ‘coercive’; the researchers also argue that a combination of the two forms can also exist (Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000: 13–17). The former takes place as a result of the free choices of domestic actors as a response to some form of dissatisfaction or uncertainty, whereas the latter occurs as a response to IOs’ direct or indirect coercive influence. Voluntary policy translation can stem from inspirational influence that IOs may simply be passive exemplars (Jacoby, 2006).

At the agenda-setting stage, IOs’ indirect, inspirational influence, however, can be exerted on domestic policy actors through their involvement in world polity, for example, through UN conferences (Deacon, 2011: 24; Hantrais, 2009: 136–137; Jacoby, 2006; Meyer et al., 1997; Pal and Ireland, 2009; Stone, 2004, 2012; Yeates, 2002). Rose (1991) defined ‘inspirational’ policy translation as a form of IOs influence that occurs when domestic policy actors are exposed to international activities, for example, by attending an international meeting, and they recognise the ability to use the same approach at the domestic level. This ‘IOs-mediated socialisation’ can provide a suitable environment for domestic policy actors to emulate global human rights norms at the domestic level (Greenhill, 2010).

IOs can use direct coercive influence on the agenda-setting and the implementation stages by using different tools. These include conditionality, economic sanctions, loans, directives, regulations, and blacklisting and they have largely attracted the attention of researchers in line with IOs’ direct and coercive role in the promotion of policy scripts in states (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996; Hantrais, 2009: 136; Sharman, 2008; Stone, 2012: 492; Teichman, 2007). Take, for example, UN sanctions including comprehensive trade and financial restrictions imposed against Iraq due to the lack of compliance with global human right norms (Lopez and Cortright, 1997). Pal and Ireland (2009) highlight an important role of the systematic examination and monitoring of the performance of a country by IOs, as the other direct coercive policy translation mechanism, in ensuring the implementation of IOs’ established norms and standards.

IOs also use indirect coercive policy translation tools including ranking countries in terms of implementation of their policies. Domestic actors can find themselves implementing IOs policies due to the perception that their country is trailing behind other states. The occurrence of an international consensus as a solution to a common problem shared with other countries can also force domestic actors to implement IOs policy scripts (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996).

IOs’ country offices have an important role in the transmission of IOs’ policy ideas to countries through the policy-making stages, yet this is under studied. A limited effect of IOs policies on states can result from incomplete internalisation of global norms at the implementation stage (Goodman and Jinks, 2008). In addition, a discrepancy between headquarters policies and local implementation can stem from the structure of the international system, which is complicated and lacking a centralised system of authority (Krasner, 1999; Meyer et al., 1997). At the monitoring stage of policy-making, this can lead to poorly enforced international standards and agreements by IOs (Hironaka and Schofer, 2002).

Epistemic community

The literature also includes both direct and indirect roles of ‘epistemic community’ members – ‘knowledge-based experts’ – as transmitters of the influence of IOs to the domestic context by analysing complex problems, assisting national governments in defining their interests, developing plans to tackle issues, suggesting specific policies, and summarising the key points for negotiation (Haas, 1992: 2). The epistemic community involving domestic NGOs and DPOs use their expert knowledge and experience as ‘resource banks’ to exert influence on various policy actors including domestic and international organisations, government bureaucrats and decision makers, legislative authorities and the public (Adler and Haas, 1992: 374; Stone, 2004: 556). Decision makers tend to seek help from an epistemic community to find solutions to complex immediate problems or institutional inertia (Haas, 1992: 12–14). To do this, the community advocates policy ideas, develops discourse of policy translation and disseminates ideas on a wide range of issues including monetary, macroeconomic, technological, environmental, health, and population. Through non-state actors having advisory positions to government, they can contribute to establishing a ‘shared experience of learning’ about problems and find an effective solution by working together (Stone, 2004, 2017).

Some studies suggest inspirational influence of IOs on the design of social policies in Turkey occurs at the agenda-setting stage of policy-making and is exerted through involvement of the epistemic community (Ozkan, 2013). To illustrate, in the 1990s the ILO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) stance on unemployment insurance was exerted through an expert team of bureaucrats and academics that reported to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. This influence was exerted on the domestic policy-making process indirectly through the dissemination of the ILO’s and OECD’s official documents on unemployment benefit schemes.

Domestic policy actors

There has been a significant gap in our knowledge of the detailed mechanisms of how IOs exert influence on policy translation through domestic policy actors. Even so, some researchers underline that whatever approach IOs use to influence states to realise policy translation, the outcome is contingent on the extent to which domestic policy actors are inspired by the process at the agenda-setting stage (Jacoby, 2006). An influential role of civil servants in the agenda-setting stage of the policy translation from IOs has been suggested. However, implementation of policy relies on strong domestic actors who are involved in the ‘world polity’ (Steunenberg, 2007). A definitive role of strong domestic actors in the process can affect the ways international forces exert influence. Bolukbasi and Ertugal (2013) argue that the transformational influence of Europeanisation on domestic policy in Turkey rested predominantly on the strategy of strong domestic policy actors, which can facilitate or hamper policy translation. Such predominance is associated with the general policymaking tradition in Turkey, which is top down and centralised.

Nascent disability specific policy developments between 1950s and 1980

Politically, to preserve the closed family structure had been seen as a clear reflection of a strong emphasis on classless and unprivileged society and paternalistic state. This policy perspective made disabled people dependent on family members by depriving them of the opportunity to live independently in association with family support being used to alleviate social risk. This was evident in the adoption of unconnected measures and a lack of coherent disability policy as part of a broader context of disability.

During the 1950s, attempts at disability policy formulation targeted, in particular, the basic tenets of special education. The catalyst which sparked government interest in special education may have been the 1950 UN Conference in Geneva ⁸ which discussed co-ordination among the specialised agencies in the field of rehabilitation of disabled people. The agreement brought about by the conference was based on the need to establish international standards for the education and treatment of disabled people (United Nations, 1998). As of 1951, special education was officially initiated in Turkey when the first school for blind people under the Ministry of National Education was set up. New legislation enacted in 1951 devolved the responsibilities of the Ministry of Health for delivering special education services to the Ministry of National Education. This legislation ushered in disability policy in Turkey, disability issues were no longer regarded as merely delivering medical care but also delivering education services (Ozurluler Idaresi Baskanligi, 2000).

From this, a gradual development of the human rights–based understanding of disability was instigated by the coup of 1960. The nascent middle class consisted mostly of managers, administrators, teachers, students, engineers, journalists, lawyers and army officials who supported the coup and the drafting of the Constitution in 1961. Their discourse was based on socially egalitarian and economic development: social reforms should be institutionalised and democratic rights should be granted to underprivileged people (Sertel quoted in Daldal, 2004: 89). The ideological shift was reflected in the 1961 constitution, which articulated libertarian, pluralist and participatory democratic characteristics (Ahmad, 1996; Bulut, 2011; Kaçmazoğlu, 2000; Kongar, 2003; Türkdoğan, 1988; Zileli, 2002). The constitution explicitly mentioned disabled people as productive citizens and encompassed special education in its articles. The libertarian atmosphere, particularly strengthened by the 1968 student movements, gave rise to the emergence of the idea that disabled people shared the same persistent problem with students: the lack of political recognition of their rights (Demirtürk, 2015). To illustrate, the Turkish Association of Disabled People organised sit-ins in front of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara in order to attract parliamentarians’ attention to disabled people’s diverse needs requiring the adoption of disability specific policies including granting tax exemptions to disabled people (Turkish Association of Disabled People, 2015). However, the emphasis of the realisation of human rights characterised in the 1961 Constitution was eroded by the coup d’état in 1971, which imposed a restriction to freedom of association and human rights aspects (Talas, 1992: 54–56). This halted the nascent developments in disability policy on the basis of the human rights–based understanding of disability.

The non-involvement of IOs and its Turkish Office in disability policy development between 1980 and 1999

The Constitution of 1961 was abolished in 1980 with another coup d’état (Talas, 1992: 54–56) and a new constitution adopted in 1982. On one hand, the adoption of human rights approaches in the 1961 constitution influenced the 1982 constitution and led to extended state responsibility to deliver social services to socially excluded people including disabled people, older people, migrants and the unemployed (Ozbek, 2006: 190–191). To illustrate, the 1982 Constitution stipulates, ‘The State shall take measures to protect the disabled and secure their integration into community life’ (Art.61/2). The constitution also states, ‘The State shall take necessary measures to rehabilitate those in need of special training so as to render such people useful to society’ (Art.42/7). According to these provisions, the State is made responsible for taking protective measures in order to eliminate the disadvantaged position of disabled people within society to make their integration into all aspects of social life possible.

On the other hand, the constitution of 1982 restricted the libertarian, pluralist and participatory democratic characteristics of the state that were introduced by the Constitution of 1961. This created a barrier to pursuing a democratic political regime and also the advancement of human rights and fundamental freedoms. To illustrate, the adoption of the Higher Education law in 1982 and the 1983 Law on Unions, Collective Bargaining, Strike and Lockout tended to limit human rights. This restrictive environment demonstrated itself in the increased emphasis on the implementation of conservative liberal policies (Talas, 1992: 72–73).

This approach was promoted by a conservative liberal party, the Motherland Party (ANAP) which was first elected in 1983 and re-elected in 1987. The party failed to amend the restricted characteristic of the Constitution. Its political agenda focused on increasing the accumulation of private capital by implementing liberal policies including privatisation and fighting high inflation. ANAP was in pursuit of market-orientated growth, making changes to the exchange rate at the expense of increased external debt, which mounted from US$19 billion in 1982 to US$67 billion by 1993. This policy orientation also made the country highly susceptible to international capital movements. The democratisation process triggered by the liberalisation of the economy required the realisation of freedom of association providing the right for workers and public employees to establish and join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation (Heper, 1985: 16). However, the advancement of human rights in social and disability policies was not a government priority.

The policy orientation towards democratising through the liberation of the economy was in line with limiting technical cooperation with IOs including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the UNDP via IOs’ Turkish offices to areas including infrastructure, social security, education, health and strengthening economic relations in Turkey. This policy orientation was evident in technical cooperation agreements with the World Bank. A $200 million loan was provided for a project on the provision of foreign exchange required for the importation of raw materials and intermediate goods in 1980 (Official Gazette, 1980). However, this policy direction did not include the advancement of disability issues.

As presented in the section ‘Disability mainstreaming’, The ILO, WHO and UNESCO headquarters had already adopted policy documents on disability. However, their direct influence on the domestic context was non-existent as their strategic priorities did not include the field of disability. This was evident in the lack of technical cooperation between the IOs and the line ministries in disability. The following quote from a key national expert highlights the adverse effects of the lack of a disability perspective in the strategic priorities of IOs in the failure of the establishment of technical cooperation in disability.

. . . Even though there are official documents of IOs in disability, IOs’ Turkish offices had tended to ignore a disability dimension in policy areas. Government organisations have also had a lack of information about the responsibility areas of those organisations and how they can benefit from them . . . (interview 5)

So the lack of technical cooperation between IOs and line ministries in disability resulted from the lack of a disability perspective in the strategic priorities of IOs. While IOs have policy documents on disability, they were not strategically prioritised and therefore not promoted by the IOs Country Offices nor were they enforced by headquarters. As a result of this, the line ministries, which approve the Country programmes, had not been influenced by the IOs Country Offices about how they could be useful in the advancement of disability issues across Turkey.

UNESCO central office was actively involved in disability developments such as holding the World Conference on Actions and Strategies on Education, Disability Prevention, and Integration of Disabled Persons in 1981 (UNESCO, 1981). In contrast, there was no direct influence of the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO on Turkish disability development (interview 9). This was due to that fact that its executive board who were primarily specialised in the arts, education and cultural heritage did not prioritise the inclusion of a disability dimension in the priorities for technical cooperation and therein lies the exclusion of disability issues in the National Commission’s activities.

WHO’s central office had already been involved in disability activities, for example, the WHO and the ILO provided survey missions, equipment and experts to the Yugoslav Government in 1957 to promote the establishment of a comprehensive national rehabilitation service for disabled people (Council of Europe, 1957). Despite this, the policy focus of WHO headquarters on immunisation in member states restricted the mandate of WHO to the responsibility areas of the Ministry of Health. This policy strengthened the concept that disability is a disease, emphasising the link between disability and ill health rather than being a normal human condition. This constituted a barrier to develop cross-sectoral understanding of health achievable only through working together with the other line ministries. The following quote of a key expert from WHO highlights the adverse effect of the policy focus of the headquarters on health member states in the way that it excluded the disability dimension in health policies:

. . . The WHO’s partner in each country is the Ministry of Health, this limits the mandate of WHO. When it comes to working with the Ministry of Health, we have great relations in every country. But when it comes to other sectors beyond health, it becomes more difficult because people do not know WHO . . . (interview 10)

While the ILO headquarters had disability policies, there was a lack of direct influence on Turkish disability developments as the strong role of the employer and employees’ Unions drove the local ILO priorities to focus on the realisation of unions’ demands over disability mainstreaming in Turkey, as highlighted by the following interviewee’s quote:

. . . We [the organisation] tend to conduct the activities orientated by the demands of employers and employees’ Unions. There have been various problems regarding working life in Turkey. That is why we have not prioritised disability . . . (interview 8)

The ILO headquarters’ lack of policy focus on disability issues was also highlighted by some key national experts as the reason for the failure of the ILO to deliver a direct coercive role in the promotion of its ‘policy scripts’ in the domestic context (interview 6 and 7). They argue that the ILO failed to enforce monitoring of Turkey’s obligation to attain employment for disabled people in accordance with the 1958 Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention (No.111). ⁹ The ILO Conference Committee ¹⁰ made an initial request for information in 1993 but it has not made any further requests since then.

The epistemic society: inspirational influence of the UN between 1980 and 1985

The UN Declaration of the International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981 represented a milestone in the initiation of the inspirational influence of the UN in the development of specific disability policy developments in a systematic and coordinated way in Turkey. While some developments in disability policy were influenced by the UN in the beginning of 1950s, the policy translation was characterised by the adoption of unconnected measures as part of a broader context of disability. Similarly, there is a lack of coherence of disability policy in Turkey as it has emerged from more general public policy relating to workers’ compensation, social security disability insurance and supplemental security income in Turkey. These policies have somewhat different origins and purposes, and they have constituted a barrier to the formulation of a coherent disability policy.

The first regular session of the Economic and Social Council (3–27 May 1983, UN headquarters) was a key element in the inspirational role of the UN on Turkish disability policy. A delegation representing the Ministry of Labour and Social Security attended as Turkey was a member of the Commission for Social Development. The UN Decade of Disabled Persons (1983–1992) and the World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons (Agenda Item 11) were parts of the social development agenda discussed during the session (United Nations, 1984). The delegation returned home with documents relating to these activities and the documents were used to guide the Ministry on formulating and implementing a comprehensive disability policy in a systematic and coordinated way.

This involvement in the world polity led to the inception of a small disability unit in August 1983 under the General Directorate of Social Protection Institutions in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to collect, translate, interpret and disseminate the UN policy scripts on disability rather than establishing regular direct communication with the UN bodies through exchanging ideas. This was evident in the following interviewee’s quote:

. . . We [the Disability Unit] started collecting, translating, interpreting and disseminating all UN policy documents in disability as a result of the Ministerial importance attached to the UN in the wake of the Ministry’s participation in the meeting [the 1^st regular session of the Economic and Social Council] . . . (interview 11)

The disability unit was established under the Ministry due to its role as a focal point in ensuring the inclusion of a disability perspective in policies involving social development, social security and employment. Initially, the unit consisted of only two civil servants, but the staff’s lack of familiarity with disability issues subsequently ushered in the incorporation of the Foundation of the Protection of Disabled People ¹¹ into the Disability Unit. The Minister of Labour and Social Security, M. Sadık ŞİDE, ¹² was a founding member of the Foundation of Protection of Disabled People (Teyvak, 2015); his close connection with disability issues meant he was aware of the persistent problems of disabled people and the need to devise a way to take stock of UN developments in the field. The involvement of two disabled staff from the Foundation provided a new perspective stemming from their experience of disability to translate and interpret the UN policy developments. In this respect, the Disability Unit served as the epistemic society, it transmitted the inspirational influence of the UN to the Ministry in order to catch up with new policy developments in disability.

The translation, interpretation and dissemination of the UN policy documents by the Disability Unit informed the Ministry of the requirements of the state to translate policy from the UN policy developments in disability. One of the first elements translated into Turkish policy was the establishment of the National Coordinating Committee for the Protection of Disabled People to realise disability mainstreaming in a wider range of policies. This was driven by UN Resolution 35/133 (adopted 11 December 1980), which stated that “Member States which have not yet done so to establish national committees or similar bodies for the International Year of Disabled Persons.” The official decision on the establishment of the coordination body was also supported by DPOs, which had only recently been allowed to form as a result of the adoption of the Association Law numbered 2908 in 1983 (Official Gazette, 1983). On the basis of this law, an umbrella association called the Turkish Disabled Confederation and four subsidiary federations (Blind Federation, Deaf Federation, Orthopedically Disabled People’s Federation and Mentally Retarded People’s Federation) were subsequently founded. The following interviewee quote highlighted an influential role of DPOs in advocating the establishment of the National Coordinating Committee:

. . . Disabled people organisations’ demand for the establishment of a coordination body in disability was also relevant to the inception of the National Coordinating Committee for Protection Disabled Persons under the Ministry of Labour and Social Security in 1985 . . . (interview 11)

As a result of the inspirational influence of the UN as well as the advocating role of DPOs, the National Coordinating Committee for Protection of Disabled People was established on 11 December 1985. The Commission was in charge of ensuring coordination and collaboration among national, international, government and private organisations in disability (Official Gazette, 1986). It was chaired by the minister of Labour and Social Security and had 65 members consisting of representatives of government organisations, social partners, DPOs and universities.

Between 1985 and 1997, the disability unit worked as the secretariat of the National Coordinating Committee for Protection of Disabled People to follow the UN disability policy developments, articulated in the section ‘Disability mainstreaming’, and transferred them to the national context by translating and interpreting the UN policy documents. Both the secretariat role of the Disability Unit and the minister of Labour and Social Security’s role as a chair of the Coordination Commission provided a suitable environment to exert the inspirational influence of the UN to the Coordinating Committee. This is substantiated by the following interviewee’s account:

. . . We [the Disability Unit] prepared and proposed the agenda of the National Coordinating Committee meetings on the basis of the UN policy developments in disability . . . (Interview 11)

The coercive influence of the UN standard rules and the national coordinating committee for protection of disabled people between 1985 and 1997

Apart from the inspirational influence of the UN, the coercive influence of the UN was also relevant to the Turkish disability policy case. As a result of the Disability Unit’s official duty to collect, translate, interpret and disseminate the UN policy developments in disability, a discussion on the UN Standard Rules was inserted in the meeting agenda of the National Coordinating Committee by the Disability Unit. The UN Standard Rules provided an impetus for State Parties to insert a disability perspective into all policy areas because for the first time it introduced a monitoring mechanism on the efforts of States Parties and IOs to improve the situation of disabled people. The UN Standard Rules IV articulated the purpose of the monitoring mechanism

. . . It [the monitoring mechanism] will assist each State in assessing its level of implementation of the Rules and in measuring its progress. The monitoring should identify obstacles and suggest suitable measures that would contribute to the successful implementation of the Rules . . .

The inclusion of the monitoring mechanism in the UN policy was identified by the Disability Unit as a result of its role in collecting, translating, interpreting and disseminating the UN policy developments in disability. A comparison among states by measuring the advancement of disability issues could potentially lead to the naming and shaming of Turkey because of the nascent disability developments. The monitoring mechanism therefore acted as a coercive UN influence, which contributed to the National Coordinating Committee agreeing (on 1 December 1994) to adopt the UN Standard Rules. They sought to ensure the promulgation of the rules to all relevant parties and to monitor the effective implementation of the rules. This was evident in a discussion held in the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 2000. An MP, Bulent Akarcali, asked the Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, in parliament: ‘What is the situation of Turkey in terms of harmonisation of European Union Standard Rules?’ The answer provided by the State Minister, Mr. Suayip Usenmez, demonstrated that the question was taken from the UN perspective (as there are no European Union [EU] Standard rules), he responded that

. . . UN Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities was on the agenda of a meeting of National Coordinating Committee for Protection of Disabled People held on 1 December 1994. During the meeting, a decision on the implementation of those rules in Turkey was taken and subsequently all government institutions have been made aware of those rules . . . (TBMM, 2000).

Adoption of the UN Standard Rules saw the first Country report on disability prepared by the Disability Unit in 1995 and in the UN monitoring of implementation of the Standard Rules through completion of the UN questionnaire ¹³ (United Nations, 2006). The adoption and implementation of the UN Standard Rules also led to the establishment of the vocational rehabilitation and accessibility committees. This demonstrates that policy learning by the National Coordinating Committee selectively translated and interpreted only limited elements of UN Policy. This ensured that the necessities of the diverse needs of disabled people were considered as well as the finite financial and human resources of the country. The committee also devised an action plan for the realisation of vocational rehabilitation and accessibility in Turkey factoring in the UN Standard Rules. This was evident in the statement of the policy document.

. . . the National Coordinating Committee has formulated a ‘National Action Plan’ for disabled people by factoring the UN policy documents . . . (TBMM, 1993).

The adoption of the action plan was promulgated by the Prime Ministry circular (Prime Ministry, 1993), which made special reference to the influence of the UN policy documents ¹⁴ in disability on the formulation of the action plan. The report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Monitoring the Implementation of the UN Standard Rules at the United Nations General Assembly Fiftieth Session A/50/374 24/08/1995 (United Nations, 1995) referred to the implementation of the 1993 Standard Rule in Turkey stating that

. . . The National Coordinating Committee, established in 1985, has translated the Rules into Turkish and distributed them to concerned institutions and organisations. The Rules are on the Committees’ agenda. General policy on the Rules will be included in the five-year plan, which is currently being drafted. The intention of the Government is to include the Rules in discussions with institutions and organisations . . .

Nevertheless, the Committee did not make progress in some areas, such as accessibility. Making the built environment accessible would require significant infrastructure improvements such as locating necessary tactile surface indicators, pedestrian facilities, removing physical barriers and providing accessible transportation. This would be costly and budget constraints prevented implementation of this part of the action plan. Even so, influence of UN disability policies yielded the adoption of disability specific actions in legislation. These policies included tax exemptions for disabled people and an increase in the employment quotas for disabled people from 2% to 3% based on recommendations in the UN Standard Rules. While the UN policy includes many measures to fulfil disability mainstreaming, the National Coordinating Committee chose to prioritise these two elements. This illustrated policy translation as ‘bricolage’ demonstrating fiddling with local realities with the benefit of policy ideas from the UN documents to construct ‘hybrid’ policies (Stone, 2017).

The National Coordinating Committee was abolished in 1997. The reason for the abolishment was substantiated by an interviewee

. . . There was a significant role of DPOs in the abolition. They had argued that the UN Standard Rules mentioned the Committee should be affiliated with the highest governmental level rather than being affiliated with a minister. Because of its current structure, the decisions taken by the Committee suffer from lacking a binding effect on the line ministries’ policies in disability since the line ministries tended to show resistance to implement the decisions taken at the Committee. The DPOs devised an advanced organisational structure affiliated with the Cabinet Office as a remedy for the problem and advocated the establishment of a new organisation . . . (Interviewee 11)

This quote shows that the policy translation from the UN is a ‘trial and error’ process (Stone, 2017); the decision to establish the National Coordinating Committee was inspired by the Standard Rules but it did not directly follow policy recommendation by being associated with a ministry rather than the highest government level. Over time, the DPOs pushed for it to be replaced by a new coordinating body affiliated with the Prime Ministry Cabinet Office instead which would have greater authority and binding effect. This also shows initiation of the DPOs taking ownership in promoting the implementation of UN policy developments in disability in the national context. Overall, this process shows inspirational as well as coercive influence of the UN that was transmitted by activities of the Disability Unit.