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Notes/Turkish/4. Konu II: Siyasal alan — the system, the parties, the economy, women in politics, and mülteciler
Notes · TurkishUK · A-Levels

4. Konu II: Siyasal alan — the system, the parties, the economy, women in politics, and mülteciler

This topic carries the second sub-theme of Edexcel's fourth theme, Türkiye’de siyasal konular, together with the theme's research subject. The sub-theme is Siyasal alan and its three aspects are başlıca siyasi partiler ve gündemleri, the main political parties and their agendas; ekonomiyi geliştirmek için hükümetin girişimleri, the government's initiatives to develop the economy; and siyasette kadınlar, women in politics. The research subject is 2015’ten beri Türkiye’deki mülteciler, refugees in Turkey since 2015, whose aspects are mültecilerin Türkiye’ye geliş nedenleri, Türkler ve mülteciler arasındaki ilişkiler, and hükümetin ve diğer kuruluşların yardımları. The theme is set in the context of Turkey only. Because the specification requires the parties and their agendas to be studied, this topic names them, and characterises each twice: as its own programme presents it, and as others describe it — with no endorsement anywhere. Institutional facts carry their dates. On the research subject the writing is about people, the legal categories are taught precisely because they are the substance, and no number is invented. The exam technique carried here is earning the AO3 range mark deliberately, using the Paper 2 grid's own definition of complex language as a checklist.

5 sections·~33 min reading time·4 competencies·Level Standard 3 · Advanced 2

T·0666 / 12
Exam profile
AO1 · Understand and respond in writing to spoken Turkish from political broadcasting, interviews and reportingAO2 · Understand and respond in writing to written Turkish of constitutional, party-political and legal registerAO3 · Manipulate Turkish accurately using the vocabulary of institutions, elections, economy and protection statusAO4 · Show knowledge and understanding of Turkish political life, and of the research subject on refugees since 2015
Operators:açıklamakadlandırmakkarşılaştırmakdeğerlendirmekaktarmaktartışmakgerekçelendirmeksonuç çıkarmak

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is that the institutions are named correctly in Turkish, that dates are right, that a party's own self-description can be reported without being adopted, and that any opinion offered is clearly signalled as the candidate's own.

higher level

The full A-Level expects every party to be characterised twice, every contested assessment to carry a named holder, the difference between a documented outcome and a claim about its meaning to be visible in the sentence structure, and legal categories to be used with their proper technical sense.

Depth

Reading depth: In depth

Text

Text size: Standard

Contents · 5 sections▾
  1. 4. Konu II: Siyasal alan — the system, the parties, the economy, women in politics, and mülteciler
    • 01The machinery: how Turkey is governed since 2018◐
    • 02Başlıca siyasi partiler ve gündemleri: named, and characterised twice●
    • 03Ekonomiyi geliştirmek için hükümetin girişimleri◐
    • 04Siyasette kadınlar: the franchise, representation, and the argument about quotas◐
    • 05Araştırma Konusu: 2015’ten beri Türkiye’deki mülteciler●
§ 01

The machinery: how Turkey is governed since 2018#

●●○StandardLPPearson Edexcel 9TU0 4. Konu — Siyasal alan (institutional context)LPDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

How the system works since 2018

Cumhurbaşkanlığı Hükûmet SistemiGraph, Seçmen → Genel seçim, Genel seçim → TBMM, 600 üye, Genel seçim → Cumhurbaşkanı, TBMM, 600 üye → Kanun, Cumhurbaşkanı → Kabine, Cumhurbaşkanı → Kararname, Cumhurbaşkanı → TBMM, 600 üyeSeçmenGenel seçimTBMM, 600 üyeCumhurbaşkanıKabineKanunKararnamegeri gönderme
Fig. 1The single most important structural fact in this diagram is that both branches begin at the same box. Since 2018 the presidential and the parliamentary elections are held on the same day, so one visit to the sandık produces both a President and an Assembly, and the two can be of different political complexions — which is precisely what makes coalition arithmetic and alliance formation matter. The Assembly legislates; the President appoints the cabinet and may issue a Cumhurbaşkanlığı kararnamesi within constitutional limits. The dashed edge is the President's power to return a law to the Assembly for reconsideration rather than promulgating it. There is no box for a prime minister because the office was abolished by the 2017 amendments, and a candidate who draws one has described the system as it was before 2018.

Key points

Before the parties, the machinery, because a candidate who does not know how Turkey is governed cannot explain anything that happens inside it. Turkey is a republic, the Türkiye Cumhuriyeti. Constitutional amendments were approved at a referendum on 16 April 2017 and took effect with the elections of 24 June 2018, replacing a parliamentary system with the Cumhurbaşkanlığı Hükûmet Sistemi, the presidential system of government. The office of Başbakan, prime minister, was abolished. The Cumhurbaşkanı, the President, is directly elected for a five-year term, is both head of state and head of the executive, appoints the Cumhurbaşkanı yardımcıları and the ministers, and may issue a Cumhurbaşkanlığı kararnamesi, a presidential decree, within limits set by the constitution.
The Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi has 600 members, raised from 550 by the 2017 amendments, elected for five years at the same time as the President. It legislates and it can put questions in writing and open a parliamentary inquiry, but it no longer confers or withdraws confidence in a government in the way it did before 2018. The electoral system is proportional with a national threshold, the seçim barajı, which was ten per cent and was reduced to seven per cent by legislation in 2022, applying from the elections of 2023. Parties commonly contest elections in alliances, ittifak, which affects how the threshold operates in practice, and the two large alliances formed in 2018 were the Cumhur İttifakı and the Millet İttifakı.
The vocabulary of elections and institutions should be automatic because it appears in every source. Seçim is an election; genel seçim a general election; yerel seçim or mahallî idareler seçimi a local election; cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimi the presidential election; sandık the ballot box; oy the vote; oy pusulası the ballot paper; seçmen the voter; aday the candidate; milletvekili a member of parliament; YSK, the Yüksek Seçim Kurulu, the supreme electoral council; muhalefet the opposition; iktidar the governing power; koalisyon a coalition; anayasa the constitution; Anayasa Mahkemesi the constitutional court; Danıştay the council of state; Yargıtay the court of cassation; belediye başkanı a mayor; vali a provincial governor, who is appointed rather than elected; kaymakam a district governor.
Two dates give an essay orientation and are safe to state. General and presidential elections were held on 14 May 2023, with a presidential run-off on 28 May 2023; local elections were held on 31 March 2024. On the international side, Turkey's customs union with the European Union entered into force on 1 January 1996; Turkey was granted candidate status at the Helsinki European Council in December 1999; and accession negotiations were formally opened on 3 October 2005. Beyond the dated facts, party names, leaderships and alliances change frequently in Turkey, and a candidate researching this sub-theme should confirm the current position from Turkish-language sources and date every source they use — which is exactly the research discipline the specification is asking for.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section B: a reading passage on the change of system

Read as in Paper 1 Section B and answer in Turkish. 2017 anayasa değişiklikleriyle başbakanlık makamı kaldırıldı ve yürütme yetkisi cumhurbaşkanında toplandı. Değişiklikler 2018 seçimlerinden sonra yürürlüğe girdi. Destekleyenler, sistemin karar alma sürecini hızlandırdığını ileri sürüyor; eleştirenler ise denge ve denetleme mekanizmalarının zayıfladığını savunuyor.

  1. 01Read the first sentence as two coordinated passives

    Başbakanlık makamı kaldırıldı ve yürütme yetkisi cumhurbaşkanında toplandı. Both verbs are passive and neither names an agent, which is the register of constitutional description. Cumhurbaşkanında is locative — the power was gathered in the President, not given to him, and the case ending is carrying that. Değişiklikleriyle is the instrumental on a plural possessive, by means of the amendments. A question asking what the amendments did wants both halves.

  2. 02Note that the passage attributes both evaluations

    Destekleyenler ... ileri sürüyor; eleştirenler ise ... savunuyor. Both subjects are -(y)An participles nominalised — those who support, those who criticise — and both verbs are attribution verbs. The writer states no view. That is worth seeing, because a question asking for the writer's own position has the answer none, and because it models exactly the practice you should follow in your own writing about this material.

  3. 03Parse the two nominalised claims

    sistemin karar alma sürecini hızlandırdığını and denge ve denetleme mekanizmalarının zayıfladığını. Both are -DIk nominalisations with possessive and accusative. Karar alma süreci is a chained compound, the decision-taking process; denge ve denetleme is the standard Turkish for checks and balances, so denge ve denetleme mekanizmaları is the mechanism of checks and balances. Zayıflamak is intransitive, to weaken, so the claim is that they have weakened, not that somebody weakened them — a distinction that matters.

  4. 04Answer in Turkish, reporting without joining

    For Metin, sistem değişikliği konusunda taraf tutuyor mu? Gerekçelendiriniz, the answer is: Hayır. Yazar her iki görüşü de destekleyenler ve eleştirenler biçiminde adlandırıp ileri sürmek ve savunmak fiilleriyle aktarıyor, kendi değerlendirmesini eklemiyor. Adlandırıp is the -(y)Ip converb; fiilleriyle is the instrumental plural. The marks are for identifying the reporting verbs as the evidence, which is a grammatical observation doing critical work.

Result: Model answer in Turkish: Hayır. Yazar her iki görüşü de destekleyenler ve eleştirenler biçiminde adlandırıp ileri sürmek ve savunmak fiilleriyle aktarıyor, kendi değerlendirmesini eklemiyor.

Exam focus

  • Referendum 16 April 2017; the presidential system in force from the elections of 24 June 2018; the office of prime minister abolished.
  • 600 members of the Assembly; the threshold lowered from ten to seven per cent in 2022.
  • Elections of 14 and 28 May 2023; local elections of 31 March 2024.
  • A vali is appointed and a belediye başkanı is elected. Sources assume you know the difference.

Typical mistakes

  • Writing about a Turkish prime minister in the present tense. The office was abolished in 2018.
  • Confusing the Anayasa Mahkemesi, the Danıştay and the Yargıtay, which have different jurisdictions.
  • Treating the threshold as still ten per cent. It has been seven since the 2022 legislation.
  • Assuming a party's alliance membership is permanent. Alliances re-form between elections.

Active revision

Write 200 words in Turkish explaining to a British reader how Turkey is governed, naming at least eight institutions correctly, stating the date on which the current system took effect, and making clear which offices are elected and which are appointed.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Turkish (9TU0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 02

Başlıca siyasi partiler ve gündemleri: named, and characterised twice#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9TU0 4. Konu — Siyasal alan: başlıca siyasi partiler ve gündemleri

The main parties, characterised twice

Başlıca siyasi partilerTable with 4 columns and 7 rows, Data: Party · Founded · As its own programme presents it · As others characterise it; AK Parti · 2001 · muhafazakâr demokrat, with development, stability and service as its watchwords · critics describe it as religiously conservative and, since 2018, built around the presidency; CHP · 1923 · sosyal demokrat, laik and Atatürkçü, emphasising rights, freedoms and social policy · critics describe it as statist and slow to widen its appeal beyond its established base; MHP · 1969 · Türk milliyetçisi, emphasising the unitary state and national security · critics describe it as hard-line nationalist; it has been allied with the AK Parti since 2018; İYİ Parti · 2017 · merkez sağ and milliyetçi, campaigning for a return to a parliamentary system · critics describe it as a nationalist split from the MHP with a shifting alliance line; DEM Parti · current name from 2023 · radikal demokrasi, the equality of peoples, ecology, and eş başkanlık · the government links the movement to the PKK, a characterisation the party rejects; Yeniden Refah · 2018 · in the Millî Görüş tradition, conservative with an emphasis on social provision · critics describe it as an Islamist party competing for the same electorate as the AK Parti; TİP · 2017 · socialist, emphasising labour, inequality and public ownership · critics describe it as a small urban party with limited reach beyond the large citiesPARTYFOUNDEDAS ITS OWN PROGRAMMEPRESENTS ITAS OTHERS CHARACTERISEITAK Parti2001muhafazakâr demokrat, withdevelopment, stability andservice as its watchwordscritics describe it asreligiously conservativeand, since 2018, builtaround the presidencyCHP1923sosyal demokrat, laik andAtatürkçü, emphasisingrights, freedoms and socialpolicycritics describe it asstatist and slow to widenits appeal beyond itsestablished baseMHP1969Türk milliyetçisi,emphasising the unitarystate and national securitycritics describe it as hard-line nationalist; it hasbeen allied with the AKParti since 2018İYİ Parti2017merkez sağ and milliyetçi,campaigning for a return toa parliamentary systemcritics describe it as anationalist split from theMHP with a shifting alliancelineDEM Particurrent name from 2023radikal demokrasi, theequality of peoples,ecology, and eş başkanlıkthe government links themovement to the PKK, acharacterisation the partyrejectsYeniden Refah2018in the Millî Görüştradition, conservative withan emphasis on socialprovisioncritics describe it as anIslamist party competing forthe same electorate as theAK PartiTİP2017socialist, emphasisinglabour, inequality andpublic ownershipcritics describe it as asmall urban party withlimited reach beyond thelarge cities
Fig. 2Every row gives a party twice over: the third column reports how the party's own programme and public statements present it, and the fourth reports how others — opponents, commentators, analysts — characterise it. Neither column is a verdict and this table endorses nothing; the whole point of the two-column form is that a candidate can write about all of them without the writing becoming advocacy. Two cautions before you use it. Party names, leaderships and alliances change often in Turkey, so confirm the current position from Turkish-language sources and date what you cite. And a self-description is evidence about a party's own positioning, which is a fact worth knowing, not a claim about what the party is; the fourth column is evidence about how it is contested, which is also a fact, and also not a verdict.

Key points

The specification requires this aspect, so the parties are named here. The method used is the one these notes use for every politically contested subject and it is worth stating before the content: each party is characterised twice, once as its own programme and public statements present it, and once as others — opponents, commentators, analysts — describe it. Neither characterisation is endorsed and neither is presented as the truth about the party. Where a party's own words are reported they are reported as its words. This is not evasion; it is what allows a candidate to write about all the parties without producing a document that reads as campaigning, and it is what an AO4 grid asking for critical analysis actually rewards.
The parties with representation in the Assembly in recent parliaments have included the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, the AK Parti, founded in 2001 and in government since 2002; the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, the CHP, founded in 1923 and the principal opposition; the Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, the MHP; the İYİ Parti, formed in 2017; the party of the pro-Kurdish left, which has contested elections under successive names and since 2023 as the Halkların Eşitlik ve Demokrasi Partisi, DEM Parti; the Yeniden Refah Partisi, formed in 2018 in the Millî Görüş tradition; the Türkiye İşçi Partisi; the Saadet Partisi; and others. Alliances group them: the Cumhur İttifakı formed in 2018 around the AK Parti and the MHP, and an opposition alliance which by the 2023 election had taken the form of a six-party table, the Altılı Masa, around the CHP and the İYİ Parti.
The vocabulary for describing a party programme should be neutral and precise. Parti programı is the party programme; seçim beyannamesi the election manifesto; gündem the agenda; ideoloji ideology; sağ and sol right and left; merkez sağ and merkez sol centre-right and centre-left; muhafazakâr conservative; sosyal demokrat social democratic; milliyetçi nationalist; laik secularist; liberal liberal; sosyalist socialist; taban the base or grassroots; seçmen kitlesi the electorate of a party; genel başkan the party leader; eş başkan a co-chair, a system used by the pro-Kurdish left in which one man and one woman hold the leadership together; kurultay a party congress; kongre a party conference.
On legal proceedings involving parties and politicians, the discipline is a method rather than a catalogue, and it applies whichever party is concerned. State what the legal fact is — a prosecution opened, a case filed, a court ruling delivered, a sentence imposed — state its date, and name the court or authority that acted. Then stop. Do not characterise the proceeding as persecution and do not characterise it as justice, because that characterisation is precisely what is disputed, in Turkey and outside it, and an examiner rewards a candidate who can show they know it is disputed. If you must report a characterisation, attribute it: the party describes the case as politically motivated; the prosecution states that it concerns specified offences. That formula lets you write about the subject accurately and without taking a side.
Worked example

Paper 2 Section A: earning the AO3 range mark on purpose

Translate into Turkish, and then check the version against the Paper 2 grid's own list of complex language. If the party had won that election, the programme it had promised would probably have been applied. Its opponents argue that the promises were never costed; the party replies that the figures were published before the vote.

  1. 01If the party had won that election

    Parti o seçimi kazanmış olsaydı. This is the counterfactual conditional, the gelseydi type: something that did not happen. Kazanmış olsaydı stacks the -mIş participle with olmak plus -sA plus -DI, which is the pluperfect conditional. A version writing kazansaydı would be understood but would lose the anteriority. Note o seçimi with the accusative, a definite object.

  2. 02the programme it had promised would probably have been applied

    vaat ettiği program büyük olasılıkla uygulanacaktı. Vaat ettiği is the -DIk participle, the programme it promised, with the party as the understood agent. Uygulanacaktı is the passive plus the future plus the narrative marker — the future in the past, which is exactly how Turkish forms would have been. Büyük olasılıkla, in all probability, hedges the claim, which is what the English probably is doing. Two of the grid's named forms are now present: a conditional and a passive.

  3. 03Its opponents argue that the promises were never costed

    Muhalifleri, vaatlerin maliyetinin hiçbir zaman hesaplanmadığını ileri sürüyor. Vaatlerin maliyeti is a belirtili compound, the cost of the promises, and the whole nominalisation hesaplanmadığını is negative, passive and in the accusative as the object of ileri sürmek. Hiçbir zaman with the negative gives never. That is a passive inside a negative nominalisation inside a reported clause — three of the grid's complexity markers in one clause.

  4. 04the party replies that the figures were published before the vote

    Parti ise, rakamların oylamadan önce yayımlandığını belirtiyor. İse marks the turn. Oylamadan önce uses the ablative with önce for before. Yayımlandığını is again a passive nominalisation in the accusative. Now count against the Paper 2 grid's own definition of complex language: a past perfect equivalent, a future perfect equivalent, a conditional, the passive voice, extended sentences conveying justified argument, and varied expression — five of its six categories in three sentences. That is what deliberately chasing the range mark looks like, and it is done by choosing structures, not by choosing rare words.

Result: Parti o seçimi kazanmış olsaydı, vaat ettiği program büyük olasılıkla uygulanacaktı. Muhalifleri, vaatlerin maliyetinin hiçbir zaman hesaplanmadığını ileri sürüyor; parti ise rakamların oylamadan önce yayımlandığını belirtiyor.

Exam focus

  • Name the parties, as the specification requires, and characterise each twice: its own programme, and how others describe it.
  • Alliances matter as much as parties: Cumhur İttifakı from 2018, the Altılı Masa by 2023.
  • Eş başkanlık, the co-chair system, is a real institutional feature and worth naming.
  • On legal proceedings: the fact, the date, the body that acted, and nothing more.

Typical mistakes

  • Adopting one party's description of another as the neutral description.
  • Writing about parties without their alliances, which makes the seat arithmetic unintelligible.
  • Reciting party positions from a memorised list without checking whether they are current.
  • Editorialising about a legal case in either direction. State the fact and its date.

Active revision

Take four parties and, for each, write two sentences in Turkish: one reporting how its own programme presents it, using verbs of attribution, and one reporting how it is characterised by others, again attributed. Then read the eight sentences back and check that a reader could not tell which party you prefer.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Turkish (9TU0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 03

Ekonomiyi geliştirmek için hükümetin girişimleri#

●●○StandardLPPearson Edexcel 9TU0 4. Konu — Siyasal alan: ekonomiyi geliştirmek için hükümetin girişimleri

Key points

The aspect asks what the government does, so the answer is institutions and instruments rather than a narrative of the economy. The institutions: the Hazine ve Maliye Bakanlığı, the treasury and finance ministry; the Cumhurbaşkanlığı Strateji ve Bütçe Başkanlığı, which prepares the budget and the planning documents; the Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankası, the central bank, whose official name has no possessive on Cumhuriyet and is often abbreviated TCMB; TÜİK for statistics; the BDDK for banking regulation; and the Türkiye Varlık Fonu, the sovereign wealth fund established in 2016. The planning documents: the Kalkınma Planı, the multi-year development plan, and the Orta Vadeli Program, the medium-term programme published annually with three-year projections.
The instruments are what a candidate should be able to name. The yatırım teşvik sistemi grades incentives by region and by sector, awarding a teşvik belgesi that carries tax and premium reliefs. Organize sanayi bölgeleri, organised industrial zones, and serbest bölgeler, free zones, offer serviced land and customs treatment. Teknopark or teknokent zones and Ar-Ge teşvikleri support research and development. KOSGEB supports small and medium enterprises; Türk Eximbank finances exporters; TOKİ builds mass housing. Kur Korumalı Mevduat, the exchange-rate-protected deposit scheme introduced in December 2021, is a named policy instrument that appears constantly in sources from the period.
Large infrastructure projects are the most visible form of the aspect and they are datable. The Marmaray rail tunnel under the Bosphorus opened in 2013; the Osmangazi and Yavuz Sultan Selim bridges and the Avrasya road tunnel opened in 2016; İstanbul Havalimanı opened in 2018 and took over scheduled traffic in 2019; the 1915 Çanakkale Köprüsü across the Dardanelles opened on 18 March 2022; the Akkuyu nuclear power station in Mersin province has been under construction since 2018; and the Kanal İstanbul waterway project has been announced and is contested. Many of these were built under the yap-işlet-devret model, build-operate-transfer, whose treasury guarantees are themselves a subject of public argument — which is a good illustration of how an infrastructure fact becomes an economic-policy argument.
On the economy itself, the single most useful discipline is to describe direction and attribute assessment rather than to quote a number. Two facts about the sources are safe, checkable and more valuable than any figure recalled from memory. First, the official consumer-price series is published by TÜİK, and an independent group of academics, ENAG, publishes a separate series that has differed from it substantially; that the two diverge, and that both are cited in Turkish public argument, is itself a fact a candidate can state and attribute. Second, economic policy direction changed after the elections of 2023, when a new economic team was appointed and the central bank raised its policy rate substantially, a shift Turkish and international commentators described as a return to more orthodox policy. Name the shift, date it, attribute the characterisation, and do not supply the numbers.
Worked example

Paper 3 Section B: summarising and evaluating two sources on an incentive scheme

The recording is a factory owner in a province receiving regional incentives; the text is an economist. Work 5(a), 5(b) and 5(c).

  1. 015(a): the spoken source

    Suppose the owner says that the incentive certificate made the investment possible, that finding skilled staff locally has been harder than expected, and that he would not have built in that province without the scheme. Summarise: Fabrika sahibine göre teşvik belgesi yatırımı mümkün kılmıştır; ancak bölgede nitelikli eleman bulmak beklediğinden zor olmuştur ve teşvik olmasaydı yatırımı o ilde yapmayacaktı. Note the counterfactual in the third clause — it is what the speaker actually claimed, and reporting it as a plain statement would lose the point.

  2. 025(b): the written source

    Suppose the economist writes that regional incentives shift investment rather than create it, that they are nonetheless justified if the aim is regional balance rather than aggregate growth, and that the schemes are rarely evaluated after the fact. Summarise: İktisatçıya göre bölgesel teşvikler yatırımı yaratmaktan çok yer değiştirmektedir; yine de amaç toplam büyüme değil bölgesel denge ise bu savunulabilir; ancak uygulamaların sonradan değerlendirilmesi nadiren yapılmaktadır. Three distinct views, three clauses.

  3. 035(c): find the point where the two sources actually engage

    They engage precisely on the counterfactual. The owner says he would not have built there without the scheme; the economist says schemes move investment rather than create it. Those two claims are compatible — moving an investment to that province is exactly what the owner describes — and noticing that is the evaluative move. Open: İki kaynak birbirini yalanlamıyor; aslında aynı olguyu, biri içeriden biri dışarıdan anlatıyor. Fabrika sahibinin anlattığı şey, iktisatçının yer değiştirme dediği şeyin ta kendisidir.

  4. 04Then judge, and say what evidence would settle it

    Bana göre iktisatçının en güçlü noktası, teşviklerin sonradan değerlendirilmemesidir: hangi yatırımın gerçekten teşvikle geldiğini bilmeden politikanın başarısı ölçülemez. Fabrika sahibinin tanıklığı değerlidir, ancak tek bir örnektir. Naming what evidence would settle a disagreement, rather than simply preferring one speaker, is the strongest thing a 5(c) answer can do, and it costs one sentence.

Result: 5(c) core: İki kaynak birbirini yalanlamıyor; aynı olguyu, biri içeriden biri dışarıdan anlatıyor. Bana göre iktisatçının en güçlü noktası, teşviklerin sonradan değerlendirilmemesidir: hangi yatırımın gerçekten teşvikle geldiğini bilmeden politikanın başarısı ölçülemez.

Exam focus

  • The aspect asks what the government DOES. Name institutions and instruments, not a narrative of prices.
  • Instruments to know: teşvik belgesi, OSB, serbest bölge, teknopark, KOSGEB, Eximbank, TOKİ, Varlık Fonu, KKM from 2021.
  • Datable projects: Marmaray 2013, the 2016 crossings, İstanbul Havalimanı 2018, 1915 Çanakkale 2022, Akkuyu under construction since 2018.
  • TÜİK and ENAG publish different inflation series. State the divergence; quote neither figure.

Typical mistakes

  • Writing about inflation and exchange rates instead of about what the government did.
  • Quoting a rate or a growth figure from memory. It will be out of date and it cannot be credited.
  • Confusing the central bank with the finance ministry. They are separate institutions with separate instruments.
  • Presenting yap-işlet-devret as a technicality. Its guarantees are one of the live arguments in this aspect.

Active revision

Write 250 words in Turkish on ekonomiyi geliştirmek için hükümetin girişimleri, naming at least six instruments or institutions and two dated projects, describing one build-operate-transfer arrangement and the argument about it, and stating the TÜİK and ENAG divergence without quoting either series.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Turkish (9TU0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 04

Siyasette kadınlar: the franchise, representation, and the argument about quotas#

●●○StandardLPPearson Edexcel 9TU0 4. Konu — Siyasal alan: siyasette kadınlar

Key points

This aspect belongs to Theme 4 and is about politics; the place of women in working life is a different aspect in Theme 1 and belongs in social-issues-and-trends-1. The historical anchor is the franchise, which came in three stages: the right to vote and stand in municipal elections on 3 April 1930, in village elections in 1933, and in parliamentary elections on 5 December 1934, with women first elected to the Assembly at the general election of 1935. Turkey has had one woman prime minister, Tansu Çiller, who held the office between 1993 and 1996; the office itself was abolished in 2018. The constitutional article on equality was amended in 2004 to add that women and men have equal rights and that the state is obliged to ensure that equality is realised in practice, and further amended in 2010 to provide that measures taken to that end are not to be regarded as contrary to the principle of equality.
Representation is the substance of the aspect and it should be described accurately rather than quantified from memory. Women have sat in every Assembly since 1935 and their share has risen substantially since the 1990s, but they remain a minority of members, a smaller minority of ministers, and a very small minority of mayors and provincial party chairs; the pattern of falling representation as one moves from national to local office is well documented and is worth stating as a pattern. If you have researched the current figures, give them with the source and the parliament they refer to. If you have not, describe the pattern and name where the numbers can be found — the Assembly publishes its own membership, and the YSK publishes election results.
The mechanisms that parties use differ and naming them is worth an AO4 mark. The CHP has operated a gender quota for candidacies; the pro-Kurdish left has used eş başkanlık, a co-chair system in which one man and one woman hold every leadership post together, alongside a quota; other parties have relied on encouragement rather than rule. Outside the parties, KA.DER, the Kadın Adayları Destekleme Derneği founded in 1997, campaigns and trains women candidates. Inside the Assembly, the Kadın Erkek Fırsat Eşitliği Komisyonu, the equal-opportunity committee established in 2009, examines legislation from that standpoint. The argument about quotas — whether they correct a structural exclusion or substitute for one — is live in Turkey as elsewhere, and both positions should be presented at their strongest.
Two policy facts belong here and both must be stated with their dates and without editorialising. Law 6284 of 2012, on the protection of the family and the prevention of violence against women, remains in force and is the principal domestic instrument. Turkey was the first state to ratify the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which had been opened for signature in Istanbul on 11 May 2011 and is known as the İstanbul Sözleşmesi; Turkey withdrew from it by a presidential decision published on 20 March 2021, with effect from 1 July 2021, and the Danıştay subsequently upheld the legality of the withdrawal. The withdrawal was and remains strongly contested in Turkish public argument, in both directions, and a candidate should report the fact, the date and the fact of the controversy, attributing the assessments to those who make them.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section A: translating a passage on representation into English

Translate into English. Kadınların seçme ve seçilme hakkını kazanması üç aşamada gerçekleşti ve 1935 seçimlerinde ilk kadın milletvekilleri Meclis’e girdi. Buna rağmen, kadınların yerel yönetimlerdeki temsili ulusal düzeydekinden bugün de düşüktür. Kimi partiler kota uyguluyor; kimileri ise kotanın kalıcı bir çözüm olmadığını, asıl sorunun aday belirleme süreçlerinde olduğunu savunuyor.

  1. 01Sentence one: a nominalised subject and a plain past

    Kadınların seçme ve seçilme hakkını kazanması üç aşamada gerçekleşti. Kazanması is a verbal noun with its subject kadınların in the genitive, women's winning of the right; hakkını takes the accusative as the object inside the nominalisation. Seçme ve seçilme is the pair to vote and to be elected, active and passive verbal nouns. Gerçekleşmek, to take place. Render: Women's winning of the right to vote and to stand took place in three stages.

  2. 02Sentence two: buna rağmen, and a comparison built on -ki

    Buna rağmen, kadınların yerel yönetimlerdeki temsili ulusal düzeydekinden bugün de düşüktür. Rağmen governs the dative, so buna rağmen. Yerel yönetimlerdeki temsil is locative plus -ki, representation in local government. Ulusal düzeydekinden is locative plus -ki plus ablative, than that at national level — the -ki turns a location into a nominal that can then be declined, which is one of the neatest things Turkish does. Bugün de means even today. Render: In spite of this, women's representation in local government is even today lower than at national level.

  3. 03Sentence three: kimi ... kimileri ise, and two stacked nominalisations

    Kimi partiler kota uyguluyor; kimileri ise kotanın kalıcı bir çözüm olmadığını, asıl sorunun aday belirleme süreçlerinde olduğunu savunuyor. Kimi ... kimileri ise is some ... others, by contrast. Two -DIk nominalisations are coordinated as objects of savunmak: that a quota is not a lasting solution, and that the real problem lies in candidate-selection processes. Aday belirleme süreci is a chained compound. Render: Some parties operate a quota; others argue that a quota is not a lasting solution and that the real problem lies in candidate-selection processes.

  4. 04Check the English for the two things it must not lose

    First, seçme ve seçilme is two rights, not one, and an English version writing the vote has dropped half a segment. Second, the third sentence attributes a position, and a version writing others believe a quota is not a solution has weakened savunuyor, which is argue or maintain — the difference between holding a view and defending one. Points-based marking scores the lexical choice separately, and in a passage about a contested policy the attribution verbs are exactly where the marks are placed.

Result: Women's winning of the right to vote and to stand took place in three stages, and the first women members entered the Assembly at the elections of 1935. In spite of this, women's representation in local government is even today lower than at national level. Some parties operate a quota; others argue that a quota is not a lasting solution and that the real problem lies in candidate-selection processes.

Exam focus

  • Three stages of the franchise: 1930 municipal, 1933 village, 1934 parliamentary; first women elected 1935.
  • Tansu Çiller, prime minister 1993 to 1996, and the office abolished in 2018.
  • Party mechanisms: the CHP quota, eş başkanlık on the pro-Kurdish left, KA.DER outside the parties, KEFEK inside the Assembly.
  • Law 6284 of 2012 in force; the İstanbul Sözleşmesi ratified 2012, withdrawal effective 1 July 2021, upheld by the Danıştay.

Typical mistakes

  • Answering with the Theme 1 aspect on women in working life, which is a different question.
  • Dating women's suffrage in Turkey to a single year.
  • Saying the İstanbul Sözleşmesi was annulled by a court. It was withdrawn from by presidential decision; a court then reviewed that decision.
  • Quoting a percentage of women members from memory. Name the Assembly's own published membership instead.

Active revision

Write 250 words in Turkish on siyasette kadınlar, giving the three franchise dates correctly, naming three different mechanisms parties or institutions use, and presenting the argument for and against quotas with each side attributed before you give your own view, marked as your own.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Turkish (9TU0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 05

Araştırma Konusu: 2015’ten beri Türkiye’deki mülteciler#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9TU0 4. Konu — Araştırma Konusu: 2015’ten beri Türkiye’deki mültecilerLPPearson Edexcel 9TU0 Paper 1 Section C — Writing (research question)

Key points

This research subject belongs to Theme 4, so it must be researched on Turkey only, and its three aspects must all be covered: mültecilerin Türkiye’ye geliş nedenleri, the reasons for coming to Turkey; Türkler ve mülteciler arasındaki ilişkiler, relations between Turks and refugees; and hükümetin ve diğer kuruluşların yardımları, the assistance given by the government and by other organisations. Before anything else, two commitments that these notes make and that a candidate should make too. This subject is about people, not about a crisis abstraction, and it should be written that way. And no number appears here that has not been researched and sourced — where a magnitude matters, the place to get it is Göç İdaresi Başkanlığı, the presidency of migration management, which publishes the official series.
The legal categories are not a technicality; they are the substance of the first aspect and using them precisely is the fastest way to show research. Turkey is a party to the 1951 Geneva Convention but retains its geographical limitation, so Convention refugee status, mülteci, is available only to people arriving from Europe. The framework for everyone else is law 6458 of 2013, the Yabancılar ve Uluslararası Koruma Kanunu, which creates the statuses şartlı mülteci, conditional refugee, and ikincil koruma, subsidiary protection, alongside mülteci. Syrians are covered instead by geçici koruma, temporary protection, under a regulation made in October 2014. In ordinary Turkish usage sığınmacı means asylum seeker, göçmen migrant, and düzensiz göçmen irregular migrant; the specification's own word is mülteciler, and an answer that explains the gap between the ordinary word and the legal category has already demonstrated research.
The second and third aspects are where care is most needed. On assistance, the datable institutional facts are ample: the Göç İdaresi administers status and registration; AFAD coordinated emergency response and camps in the earlier period; Türk Kızılay operates alongside it; the Sosyal Uyum Yardım Programı, a cash-transfer programme funded by the European Union and delivered with Kızılay, is the largest humanitarian assistance programme of its kind; a regulation of January 2016 allowed Syrians under temporary protection to apply for work permits; schooling moved from separate Geçici Eğitim Merkezleri into the state system, supported by the EU-funded PICTES project; and primary healthcare is provided partly through Göçmen Sağlığı Merkezleri. Non-governmental organisations working in the field include SGDD-ASAM, and the international agencies BMMYK, which is UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration.
On relations, the discipline is attribution and specificity. What is documented: that the presence of a large displaced population has become a subject of public and electoral argument in Turkey; that survey research and reporting record both cooperation and friction, varying sharply by city, by neighbourhood and by labour market; that documented incidents of unrest have occurred in several places; and that policy on return has been argued about throughout. What is not for a candidate to assert: how relations are in general, what most people think, or who is to blame. Attribute every assessment. Note also that the picture has moved: the EU–Turkey Statement of 18 March 2016 shaped the earlier years, and after the change of government in Syria in December 2024 return became a much larger part of the discussion, so date every source you use and say what period your claim covers.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section C: a full plan and two drafted paragraphs on a 40-mark question

The statement is: Türkiye’deki mültecilere sağlanan destek, uyumu sağlamak için yeterli olmuştur. Plan the answer and draft the opening and the aspect-three paragraph.

  1. 01Notice that the statement contains two separable questions

    Yeterli olmuştur, has been sufficient, presupposes an agreed measure of sufficiency; and uyumu sağlamak, to achieve integration, presupposes an agreed meaning of uyum. Both presuppositions are attackable and attacking them is more productive than agreeing or disagreeing. Plan: opening that unpicks the two words; paragraph on what assistance actually exists, which is aspect three; paragraph on why people came and what that implies about what integration would mean, which is aspect one; paragraph on relations, which is aspect two, and where the evidence is most contested; short conclusion with a marked judgement.

  2. 02Draft the opening

    İfade iki tartışmalı kavram içeriyor: yeterlilik ve uyum. Yeterliliğin ölçüsü belirtilmediği sürece, desteğin yeterli olup olmadığı sorusu cevaplanamaz; uyum ise kaynaklarda farklı anlamlarda kullanılıyor — kimi zaman dil ve okul, kimi zaman iş gücüne katılım, kimi zaman ise kalıcı yerleşim kastediliyor. Bu nedenle önce neyin ölçüldüğünü belirlemek gerekir. Note belirtilmediği sürece, so long as it is not specified; the -Ip -mA form olup olmadığı, whether or not; and kastedilmek, to be meant, which is exactly the verb for reporting what a word is used to mean.

  3. 03Draft the paragraph on assistance, aspect three

    Destek çok sayıda kurum tarafından ve farklı biçimlerde sağlanıyor: Göç İdaresi kaydı ve statüyü yürütüyor, Kızılay ve Avrupa Birliği ortaklığındaki nakit yardım programı düzenli ödeme yapıyor, 2016’dan itibaren geçici koruma altındaki Suriyeliler çalışma izni için başvurabiliyor ve çocuklar ayrı merkezlerden devlet okullarına geçirildi. Bu liste, desteğin varlığını gösterir; ancak yeterliliğini göstermez, çünkü yeterlilik ihtiyaca göre ölçülür ve ihtiyacın büyüklüğü kaynaklarda tartışmalıdır. The paragraph names five concrete things, then draws the distinction the opening promised.

  4. 04Close with a judgement that is genuinely a judgement

    Kanımca ifade, tek bir cevabı olmayan bir soruyu tek bir cevaba indirgiyor. İncelediğim kaynaklara göre destek, temel ihtiyaçlar bakımından kapsamlı, uzun vadeli uyum bakımından ise parçalı görünüyor; bu nedenle ifadeye kısmen katılıyorum. Kanımca marks the first person; indirgemek, to reduce, names what the statement does to the question; the two bakımından phrases split the verdict along the axis the answer has been building; and katılmak takes the dative. A 40-mark answer that ends here has covered three aspects, argued rather than listed, attributed throughout and invented nothing.

Result: Opening: İfade iki tartışmalı kavram içeriyor: yeterlilik ve uyum. Yeterliliğin ölçüsü belirtilmediği sürece, desteğin yeterli olup olmadığı sorusu cevaplanamaz. Conclusion: Kanımca destek, temel ihtiyaçlar bakımından kapsamlı, uzun vadeli uyum bakımından ise parçalı görünüyor; bu nedenle ifadeye kısmen katılıyorum.

Exam focus

  • Theme 4, so Turkey only, and all three aspects. Write about people, not about an abstraction.
  • The geographical limitation to the 1951 Convention is why Syrians hold geçici koruma and not mülteci status.
  • Name the instruments: law 6458 of 2013, the 2014 temporary-protection regulation, work permits from 2016, SUY, PICTES.
  • Date every source. The EU–Turkey Statement of 18 March 2016 and the events of December 2024 bracket very different periods.

Typical mistakes

  • Using mülteci and sığınmacı as if they were interchangeable when the legal difference is the point.
  • Quoting a population figure. Cite Göç İdaresi as the publisher and give a figure only if you have researched it.
  • Generalising about relations between communities. Attribute, specify the place, and date the claim.
  • Writing about the earlier period as though it were current. The situation after December 2024 is materially different.

Active revision

Build a research file on this subject with at least two authentic Turkish sources for each aspect, every source dated, and a note on each of which period it describes. Then write the 300-to-350-word Section C answer to the statement Türkiye’deki mültecilere sağlanan destek, uyumu sağlamak için yeterli olmuştur.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Turkish (9TU0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Contents

Section -- / 05

    • 01The machinery: how Turkey is governed since 2018◐
    • 02Başlıca siyasi partiler ve gündemleri: named, and characterised twice●
    • 03Ekonomiyi geliştirmek için hükümetin girişimleri◐
    • 04Siyasette kadınlar: the franchise, representation, and the argument about quotas◐
    • 05Araştırma Konusu: 2015’ten beri Türkiye’deki mülteciler●

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From notes into training

4. Konu II: Siyasal alan — the system, the parties, the economy, women in politics, and mülteciler

Reinforce this topic with matching tasks from the question bank.

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References & sources

Sources

Pearson Edexcel

  • Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Turkish (9TU0) specification

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Grammar and translation: Paper 1 Section A, Paper 2 Section A, and the whole of Appendix 2

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