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A Faithful Alliance Between the Civil Society and the State: Actors and Mechanisms of Accommodating Syrian Refugees in Istanbul
Author(s) -
Danış Didem,
Nazlı Dilara
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international migration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.681
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1468-2435
pISSN - 0020-7985
DOI - 10.1111/imig.12495
Subject(s) - refugee , alliance , civil society , state (computer science) , general partnership , palestinian refugees , hospitality , political science , corporate governance , sociology , law , public administration , tourism , politics , management , economics , computer science , algorithm
Reception, hospitality and integration are certainly the main challenges of the contemporary world, particularly for countries like Turkey which hosts more than 3 million refugees from Syria. The aim of this article is to analyze the reception practices of civil society organizations and the nature of these bodies’ relationship with state agencies by focusing on Sultanbeyli, a peripheral district of Istanbul. Based on a fieldwork conducted in this district, we present the functioning of various state and non‐state actors in order to uncover not only the role of NGO s, but also the nature of the relations between them and the state in terms of governance of refugee reception in Turkey. We thus argue that the reception of Syrian refugees is undertaken by a “faithful” alliance between the state and certain NGO s, a partnership where civil society assumes a supporting role to the state in refugee reception.