Impact of Terrorism on Migration Patterns in Turkey

This study is among the first studies that evaluate the social impacts of terrorism in a specific country for a 10 year period. It tests the effects of terrorism on domestic net-migration in Turkey, especially in the terror infected provinces of the Eastern and South Eastern regions of the country between the years 1992 and 2001. Terrorism has impacted people not only physically, but also psychologically. When faced with "future uncertainty" or the "fear of terrorism," it is natural for people to leave their home towns, and to migrate to somewhere else where they feel safe. In order to explore the real impact of terrorism on immigration, this study used "terrorism incident rate" per 10,000 people and the "rate of people and security forces killed" per 10,000 people as independent variables. It also examined the major economic effects of migration; unemployment rate and the GDP were used as control variables. In addition, the rate of killed terrorists, population density, and the distance to Istanbul and to Mersin were also added to the models. A control-series regression analysis was performed to relate the terrorist incidents' impact on the citizens' inclinations to leave their home towns in all provinces and in high terrorism incident provinces of East and Southeast regions of Turkey. Results show that the net-migration in high terrorism incident provinces is higher than the net-migration in other provinces. Findings also confirm that there was a positive relationship between net-migration and terrorist incidents and that relationship was higher during 1992-1995, when the number of terrorist incidents hit its all time highest level. Other than terrorist incidents, results moreover confirm that net-migration is positively related to the number of "people and security forces killed".In addition, results also confirm that population density and distance were related to net-migration. Economic variables, such as GDP and unemployment also related to net migration. However, their impacts varied from model to model. While the GDP was negatively related to net-migration in the models with all the provinces; unemployment was positively related to net-migration in the models with only high terrorism incident provinces.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Political Science & Public Administration

Year dc:date.available

2006

Author dc:creator

• Simsek, Yilmaz

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Judyth Twigg

• PKK
• Turkey
• terrorism
• conflict
• migration
• internally displaced persons
• Social and Behavioral Sciences

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/652

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1651