TURKISH STATE AND SYRIAN REFUGEES: CONFLICTING POLICIES AND INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY

The main aim of this article is to explain the contradictory policies of Turkish state, towards Syrian refugees in the domestic and foreign policy areas, with the theoretical framework of policy inconsistency stemming from the state's "instrumental rationalism" point of view. The data collection method of the research is based on a systematic and comprehensive qualitative analysis of policy documents and online news articles. With a process tracing methodology, the article tests the power of “instrumental rationality” theoretical framework to explain the development of Turkish state policies against Syrians in Turkey. The findings show that in the last ten years, Turkish state has introduced policies of integration, resettlement and repatriation towards Syrians as alternatives to each other, with varying, and even contradictory, discourses. The “guest” perspective, was acquired with the expectation that the crisis in Syria would be short-lived and that the incoming refugees would return to their countries. When it was understood that they would stay longer, a process of integration emerged, first by giving them the status of "temporary protection" (2014), and then, albeit very limitedly, by providing "work permits" and "transition to citizenship" (2016). After 2017, a rapid increase in the discourse of "repatriation" for Syrians has emerged in Turkish state. In 2019, on the one hand, these "repatriation" discourse began to be evolved into concrete policies, and on the other hand, concrete plans for the integration of Syrians are added to the main policy documents such as the “11th Development Plan” (2019-23) and the “Integration Strategy Document and National Action Plan” (2018-23). As these examples show, Turkish state has tended to regulate the future of asylum seekers with plural policy options, in parallel with the three accepted in the international asylum regime. Sudden changes in these policies and discourses in response to the domestic and foreign political conjuncture show that the conflicting inconsistency in immigration policies stems from an instrumental rationality. The main finding is that, this rationality causes a problem of inconsistency in the state's policies against Syrian refugees in Turkey. The original value of the article is that it offers a critical perspective on the policy options that the state makes available to Syrians in Turkey. In Turkey, the state's effort to make all policy options for Syrian refugees, such as integration or refoulement, as available, is presented as a positive situation by Turkish policy makers. Possible political, social and individual consequences of this policy inconsistency are deliberated in this article.