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Turkish German Affairs from an Interdisciplinary Perspective

by Elif Nuroglu (Volume editor) Ela Sibel Bayrak Meydanoglu (Volume editor) Enes Bayraklı (Volume editor)
©2016 Edited Collection 406 Pages

Summary

The relations between Turkey and Germany deserve to be called unique because of their depth and extent. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach on these relations from political, socio-economic and business perspectives. In this context, it is a beneficial reference book for those academics in Political Science, Economics and Business Administration who focus their researches on various aspects of the relations between Turkey and Germany. It also provides useful insight for the practitioners such as policy makers, diplomats, investors, financial analysts, NGOs that are engaged in Turkish-German relations, German companies invested in Turkey and Turkish companies that transfer know-how from Germany.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author(s)/editor(s)
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • Part I: Social-Political Relations
  • EU-Turkey Relations and The German Perspective
  • The Role of Turkish Immigrants on Economic and Political Relations Between Germany and Turkey
  • Changing Patterns of Migration: German Migrants in Turkey
  • Turkish Migrant Self-Organizations in Germany
  • Germans in Alanya
  • Transferring Social Capital from Turkey to Germany – Opportunities and Consequences for the Employment of Turkish Women?
  • Part II: Socio-economic Relations
  • The Structural Transformation of Bilateral Trade Relations between Germany and Turkey: Causes and Consequences
  • The Contribution of the Remittances of Turkish Workers in Germany to the Balance of Payments of Turkey (1963–2013)
  • Transformations of the Labor Markets in Turkey and Germany
  • Do Rights Migrate with Migrants Across Borders? Transferability of Social Security Benefits between Turkey and Germany
  • Macroeconomic Variables and Stock Market Returns: A Comparison of Germany and Turkey
  • Part III: Business Relations
  • The Role of Social Marketing Activities for Removing the Obscruity of Non-Governmental Organisations in Turkey: The Case of Friedrich Naumann Foundation
  • Knowledge and Technology Transfer from Germany to Turkey: It’s Past, Current Situation and Future Challenges
  • The Rise of Medical Tourism in Turkey and the Unique Case of Patients from Germany
  • German FDIs in Turkish Manufacturing Industry
  • Global Competitiveness: A Comparison between Turkey and Germany
  • Authors

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Foreword

The statistics clearly demonstrate that Germany is the most important partner of Turkey in terms of exports and imports as well as foreign direct investments. Considering the fact that these two countries have no common border, it indicates a special partnership which is rarely found in the world.

It is unthinkable that economic relations between countries are not influenced by political affairs. The policies followed by each country could either further or obstruct economic relations. However one might easily claim that the economic ties between Germany and Turkey are an exceptional case, because economic issues have a striking precedence over political ones. Although political relations between Turkey and Germany still lag behind the desired level, economic relations deepen and intensify day by day, and trade volumes between the two countries increase regularly.

This book is another example of the deep relations between the two countries. Edited by three distinguished faculty members of our university – Associate Prof. Dr. Elif Nuroğlu, Associate Prof. Dr. Ela Sibel Bayrak Meydanoğlu and Assistant Prof. Dr. Enes Bayraklı – this study deals with the evaluation of political, economic and business relations between Turkey and Germany. Its goal resembles one of the main goals of our university, which was established by these two countries to promote scientific and cultural relations between Turkey and Germany.

I hope that this book, which sheds light on various aspects of the political, economic and business relations between Germany and Turkey, will contribute to the further development and institutionalisation of relations between the two countries.

Beykoz, İstanbul 09.06.2015
Prof. Dr. Halil Akkanat
Rector of Turkish German University

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Introduction

This edited book is an interdisciplinary publication which focuses on political, socio-economic and business relations between Turkey and Germany. In this context, it is a beneficial reference book for those academics in Political Science, Economics and Business Administration who focus their researches on various aspects of the relations between Turkey and Germany. It provides useful insight also for the practitioners such as policy makers, diplomats, investors, financial analysts, NGOs that are engaged in Turkish-German relations, German companies invested in Turkey and Turkish companies that transfer know-how from Germany. Libraries, universities, as well as academic and research institutions can also benefit from this book.

The book consists of three sections:

Political relations between Turkey and Germany

Socio-economic relations between Turkey and Germany

Business relations between Turkey and Germany

The first section of this book includes six articles that analyse the social political relations between Turkey and Germany from a multidimensional perspective. The majority of the chapters in this section examine the impact of German and Turkish migrants in both countries on the bilateral relations between Turkey and Germany.

In the first chapter titled “EU-Turkey Relations and The German Perspective”, Wolfgang Wessels and Hanna Lisa Hauge from University of Cologne analyse the Germany’s perspective on the Turkish bid to EU membership. Based on a historical approach, this chapter outlines the different narratives evolved in German political and academic debate over the time regarding Turkey’s membership to the European Union. The authors find that four different narratives, namely identity, geostrategic, economic and political narrative shaped the debate since the end of the 1950s in different phases. Accordingly the relevance of this narratives was influenced by internal and external developments within the EU and Turkey, but also by significant changes in the international system. In a nutshell this chapter offers an excellent summary of the German debate on Turkey’s membership bid to the EU from a historical perspective.

In the second chapter the vice president of TOVAK Can Ünver examines the role of Turkish immigrants on economic and political relations between Germany and Turkey. According to the author the main feature of Turkish-German relations is ← 9 | 10 → the fact that it is “friendly and hostile” and “close and far” at the same time. Based on this assumption this article focuses on the influence of Turkish community in Germany in social, economic, political, and cultural life, and its impact on Turkish German bilateral relations.

The third chapter written by Bianca Kaiser from Kemerburgaz University deals with the changing patterns of migration in Turkish German Relations and analyses the German Migrants in Turkey. After providing an overall historical background of German migrants in Turkey the author focuses on the evolution of Turkey’s immigration regime, which affects the German migrants through laws and regulations. The author draws attention to the transformation of Turkey from a country of emigration into a country of immigration. Furthermore this chapter analyses the heterogeneity of German citizens in Turkey, their transnational life, political participation strategies, as well as citizenship issues and networking activities. The author concludes that German migrants in Turkey are a heterogeneous group and they have developed different strategies to cope with integration problems they are facing in Turkey.

The fourth chapter written by Ian Towers, Dunja Ewinger, Anabel Ternes from SRH Hochschule Berlin, analyses the socio-economic impact of Turkish Migrant Self-Organizations on Germany. In this regard the authors focus on immigrant self-organizations (MSOs), which are established to help their members to deal with the problems they face in daily life. After providing a background about the recent history of immigration to Germany, the study analyses different kinds of MSOs that exist and then looks in more detail at several MSOs – one is for women from the Turkish community, two are for business people and two for students – and shows how they help their members to integrate into German society. The authors admit that the degree to which MSOs contribute at a societal level to integration is not so easy to measure. Yet they clearly demonstrate that MSOs make a difference for their members and have a positive effect on immigrant daily life.

The fifth chapter written by Halil İbrahim Bahar is about German migrants in Alanya. The author examines the reasons why Germans prefer to settle in Alanya and the factors that influence their decision to choose this area. The author tries to answer the following questions: What form do social relationships take amongst Germans living in Alanya, between themselves and Turks, and other foreigners? What problems do they encounter when setting out to buy property, and what are the most effective solutions and methods employed to overcome these problems? What are the relevant rights of foreigners in Turkey with regard to employment and the purchase of property? What are the latest developments with regard to work permits for foreigners? What contribution do the resident Germans make to economic activity in Alanya? ← 10 | 11 →

The last chapter of the first part of the book is written by Şükrü Yurtsever and Sarah Glück, which is entitled “Transferring Social Capital from Turkey to Germany: Opportunities and Consequences for the Employment of Turkish Women”. It analyses the causes of the evolution of social capital with paying special interest to the role of Turkish immigrant women in Germany. Specifically the authors aim to understand whether Turkish women have a substantial impact on the transformation of excessive “bonding social capital” to a more valuable “bridging social capital”, which might create opportunities for their employment. The main findings of the authors indicate that Turkish women possess both bonding and bridging social capital but the quality and the quantity can change over a lifetime, due to various reasons.

The second section focuses on socio-economic relations between Turkey and Germany and contains five chapters. It starts with the chapter written by Nihal Tuncer Terregrossa and Ferda Karagöz entitled The Structural Transformation of Bilateral Trade Relations between Germany and Turkey: Causes and Consequences. In this chapter, the authors analyse the structural change observed in bilateral trade flows between Germany and Turkey from 1993 to 2013. As a consequence of globalization, production and trade patterns are newly shaped and new types of trade emerge. The existing literature classifies trade types as one-way and two-way (intra-industry) trade, and analyzes two-way trade under two headings that are horizontal and vertical intra-industry trade. The authors also follow the same categorization and focus on commodity groups in which production sharing is expanding globally by employing disaggregated trade data. It is shown that trade flows between Germany and Turkey are dominated by one-way trade. It is also found that there is a notable rise in Products & Components trade, and that Vertical Intra Industry Trade is the dominant trade type between two countries. The motor vehicles industry is the largest category in both final goods and Products &Components Trade, and it is concentrated on a few commodities. Based on the calculation of the authors, it is seen that Turkey specializes in low unit value products while Germany specializes in products with high skill content. However, a structural change in Turkish exports is observed from low technology-labour intensive sectors like textiles and leather to medium technology sectors such as machinery and motor vehicles. The authors suggest that specialization in the low price-low unit value segments of medium technology products limits the gains from trade. One lesson to be learned from Germany’s behaviour as a successful exporter is that one should focus on the capabilities to create a high value added products.

The second chapter of socio-economic relations part is contributed by Güzin Emel Akkuş of İstanbul University which is about Remittances of Turkish Workers in Germany. The Chapter is entitled The Contribution of the Remittances of Turkish ← 11 | 12 → Workers in Germany to the Balance of Payments. In the chapter the contribution of the remittances that are sent by Turkish people from Germany to the balance of payments of Turkey since 1960s is analyzed. This analysis is made in regard to the Five Year Development Plans of Turkey which gave a special emphasis to labor migration to Europe. The authors use statistical data for the period of 1963–2013 in order to measure the significance of the remittances for the balance of payments of Turkey. It is stated in the chapter that during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, the remittances of Turkish workers, 80% of which is estimated to come from Germany, have made an important contribution to the balance of payments of Turkey. However, after 2000 the remittances lost their importance as a foreign finance resource. In is noted in the chapter that the remittances could not be invested in employment-generating activities to maximize economic growth and the programmes of Turkish governments designed to use remittances in productive investments have not been successful, therefore it would not be wrong to say that Turkey could not reap all potential benefits from migration to Western Europe.

Transformations of the Labor Markets in Turkey and Germany is the next chapter written by Şule Daldal of Marmara University in which the author makes a comparative analysis of the labor markets in Turkey and Germany after the transformation of the labor markets as a result of the implementation of neo-liberal economy policies. The shift to neo-liberal economic systems influenced almost all over the world, and transformed more structured and by the state controlled labor markets that intend to achieve full employment, towards more flexible ones. In this chapter, the author analyzes the way the labor markets of Germany and Turkey are affected from this transformation process. Moreover, the changes in the fields of unemployment, informal economy, social gender, wages and syndication by virtue of the flexibilisation policies that have been experienced in Turkish and German labor markets are examined. Active and passive labor market policies implemented by Germany and Turkey are also discussed and important differences in terms of the quality of passive labor market policies between two countries have been noted.

Seçil Paçacı Elitok of Koç University, Turkey, contributes to the book with a chapter titled “Do Rights Migrate with Migrants Across Borders? Transferability of Social Security Benefits between Turkey and Germany”. Bilateral social security agreements that coordinate social protection of migrants and transferability of social security benefits between countries are of interest not only for academics but also for policy makers. In this chapter, Paçacı Elitok deals with the social protection schemes in the migration corridor of Germany-Turkey, and evaluates the legal framework regulating social protection of migrants between Germany and Turkey. She sheds some light on the issue through conducted in-depth interviews ← 12 | 13 → with representatives of social insurance institution as well as social security and labor ministry regarding portability issues about retirement benefits and health care, the problems arise in the functioning of bilateral agreements and the solutions to those problems. She summarizes the main findings under ten headings which will surely help to policy makers and academics. This interesting topic is considered to be important also for the return decision of Turkish migrants in Germany which however needs further research.

Çiydem Çatak of Turkish-German University studies stock markets of both countries in her Chapter entitled “Macroeconomic Variables and Stock Market Returns: A Comparison of Germany and Turkey”. In her research, she uses the data set from 2005 to 2014 in order to evaluate the impact of macroeconomic variables on the stock returns in Turkey and Germany. The findings of the chapter are considered to be useful especially for investors in order to assess the Turkish and German stock exchange markets to make their investment decisions. In the chapter Multiple Linear Regression model is employed to analyze the relationship between current account balance, inflation rate, interest rate, export/import ratio, industrial production index, exchange rate and returns of DAX-30 and BIST-30 indexes within the framework of the Arbitrage Pricing Model. It is empirically proven by the results of this chapter that macroeconomic environment in a country, as such in Germany and Turkey, has an undeniable influence on the returns and functioning of the stock exchanges.

The third section that focuses on the studies related to business relations between Germany and Turkey contains five chapters. The first chapter “The Role of Social Marketing Activities for Removing the Obscruity of Non-Governmental Organizations in Turkey” written by Burçak Boydak Özdaş deals with the contributions of social marketing activities executed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to the economy, social and cultural life. The contributions are concretized through a German NGO called Friedrich Nauman Foundation (FNF). The author introduces initially NGOs in general. Following that, she explains why NGOs are essential in a global sense and how social marketing activities, an important research area for Marketing, can contribute to increase the recognition and effectiveness of NGOs. Finally, social activities executed by FNF in Turkey and their contributions to the economic, social and cultural life in Turkey are discussed.

Harun Kaya deals with knowlege and technology transfer, an important topic of Technology Managament, from Germany to Turkey. He defines in the chapter “Knowledge and Technology Transfer from Germany to Turkey: Its Past, Current Situation and Future Challenges” initially the term “technology” and explains the importance of technology transfer. In the chapter, Dr. Kaya focuses on the technology transfer in the 20th century and in the new millennium. He defines current ← 13 | 14 → political, economic, social, cultural, scientific and educational relations between Germany and Turkey as enablers of knowledge and technology transfer of the new millennium. The challenges of transfering knowledge and technology from Germany to Turkey (e.g. difficulty of transfering of tacit knowledge) and some suggestions to overcome these challenges are discussed in the chapter as well.

The chapter “The Rise of Medical Tourism in Turkey and the Unique Case of Patients from Germany” by Sevgi Kurtulmuş and Ali Osman Öztürk introduces medical tourism concept in Turkey, which is a new and developing sector. In the study they focus on the German patients, who form the biggest portion of foreign patients and received medical services in Turkey according to an analysis in 2013. Following an overview and some statistics related to the types of international patients in Turkey, statistics about the patients from Germany and their reasons of prefering Turkey for medical services are discussed. The authors signalize also some problems due to the intensive patient-flow from Germany to Turkey (e.g. a price surge especially in touristic areas of Turkey caused by German tourists’ increased demand to private hospital services) that may cause some disadvantages for Turkish citizens. The authors introduce some solutions against these problems and recommend Turkish government, as the main policy maker, to establish a balance between protecting the health of Turkish citizens and generating wealth through medical tourism.

Emre Ergüven contributes to the book with a chapter entitled “German FDIs in Turkish Manufacturuing Industry” which is an interesting topic for International Finance. In this chapter characteristics of German FDIs, which are active in manufacturing industry in Turkey, and their motives for investing in Turkey are discussed. It was found out that German FDIs operate in medium-high and medium-low technology industries, have R&D units aimed at domestic market, do not employ highly qualified labour, bring their own technology, mostly use imported inputs and capital goods, export to Europe (if they do), and are part of global production networks in which Turkish affiliate has very limited role about procurement, production and sales. Among various motives, the large domestic market in Turkey ranks as the first motive for investing in Turkey. The author rounds up the chapter by implying some challenges for the investments of German FDIs and by making some suggestions both for the German FDIs and Turkey to continue the existing investments or to establish new investments.

The chapter “Global Competitiviness: A Comparison between Turkey and Germany”, written by Nuray Terzi, is another interesting topic in the research area of International Finance. In this chapter, Germany and Turkey are compared in terms of the pillars of global competitiveness (institutions, infrastructure, macro-economic environment, health and primary education, higher education ← 14 | 15 → and trainning, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, innovation). Although Germany is predominant in all pillars of competitiveness, Turkey also has a competitive advantage in some pillars such as institutions, macroeconomic environment, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development and technological readiness. Turkey should take advantage of these areas to strengthen trade relations with Germany and prevent a huge trade deficit which was ca. 10.4 billion USD in 2013.

We hope that this edited book will be a reference book to gain an insight into the various political, socio-economic and business aspects of Turkish-German relations and will contribute significantly to shape the future relations between Turkey and Germany.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all writers who contributed to this book and the Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of Turkish-German University that financially supported the publication of the book.

İstanbul, June 2015

Elif NUROĞLU
Turkish- German University
Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences
Department of Economics

Details

Pages
406
Year
2016
ISBN (PDF)
9783653062670
ISBN (ePUB)
9783653956184
ISBN (MOBI)
9783653956177
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631668580
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-06267-0
Language
English
Publication date
2015 (September)
Keywords
political relations socio-economic relations business relations
Published
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2015. 406 pp., 90 tables, 36 graphs

Biographical notes

Elif Nuroglu (Volume editor) Ela Sibel Bayrak Meydanoglu (Volume editor) Enes Bayraklı (Volume editor)

Elif Nuroğlu is Associate Professor of Economics at the Turkish-German University, Istanbul, and Head of the Economics Department. She received her PhD degree from the University of Vienna. Her major areas of interest are International Trade, Empirical International Economics, Gravity Model, Econometric models and Empirical Macroeconomics. Ela Sibel Bayrak Meydanoğlu is Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Turkish-German University, Istanbul. She received her PhD degree from the University of Lüneburg (Germany). Her major areas of interest are Digital Marketing, Mobile Tagging and E-Business. Enes Bayraklı is a faculty member at the Department of Political Science at the Turkish-German University, Istanbul. He received his PhD degree from the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. His fields of research include the Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy, Northern Iraq Policy of Israel, Cultural Diplomacy, Foreign Policy Analysis and German Foreign Policy.

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