Historical Development Of Civil Society And Ngo’s As The Organizational Structure Of Civil Society In Turkey

The concept of civil society, which has roots going back to Aristotle’s “politike koinonia”, has changed and transformed over the history. Civil society today is defined as a society where individuals can form relations and institutions voluntarily and with consent and can act mostly independent of the pressures of economic relations, without having fear of investigation and without asking permission from the state in areas where state’s authority and pressure can’t reach. Civil society, in the form that is known today, emerged around the mid-1970s and specifically in the 1980s. As a result of globalization, civil society and its organized form, civil society organizations, became much more effective. In the Turkish experience, there have been some increasing pace in the development of civil society during the 1980s and especially the 1990s. Civil society organizations, that are considered as non-governmental entities, despite contentions about their autonomy, can realize many national and international projects. All these have made civil society organizations an important part of the modern society. In order to understand this part better, in this research, the journey of evolution of civil society up to our day and its reflection on Turkey are shown. Along with that, the development of civil society organizations in Turkey, that are the organized form of civil society, are presented starting from the Ottoman experience. In conducting this research, a large literature is covered and statistical data about civil society of our day are employed.

Keywords

Civil society, Civil society and democrasy, Civil society organization, Civil society organizations and Turkey.