Please put the computer away

It's Thanksgiving break. True to form, I'm engaging in festivities behind my lap top screen or over the top of a book. It's not that I want to be anti-social, it's just that the pressure of the semester's end is starting to press in on me from every side. Instead of thinking Turkey -- the grateful bird, I'm thinking Turkey -- the place of a burgeoning women's rights movement and the topic of my Human Rights course term paper.

"Andrea, what's that you're reading?" My family politely inquired.
"Um, Turkey's Engagement in Global Women's Human Rights."
"Wow, sounds great. Could you actually read that aloud to all of us?"

Maybe I'm fixated on the wrong Turkey, but it does provide a fascinating case study. Since the mid-1980s women's groups have pressed for greater gender equality within Turkey, mainly through the revision of its legal codes. Since the late 1990s, which coincides with Turkey's accession to the EU, Turkey's civil and penal codes have been revised to promote women's equality under the law. The simple explanation for the change is to credit the EU accession alone, but I argue that the influence of transnational networks devoted to pushing the agenda of greater rights for women played a significant role in the adoption of a domestic gender regime. The coordinated activities of international and domestic non-governmental organizations facilitated the promotion and protection of women's human rights in Turkey.

At the risk of taking the holiday pun a step too far, my Turkey day activities will be heavily influenced by the study of the state which should provide a (thankful) opportunity for best practices and insight. The idea is to figure out what works in translating international norms to the domestic level, and Turkey provides an excellent case study.