Youth Exclusion and the Transformative Impact of Organized Youth in Turkey

This paper provides a brief overview of youth organizations in Turkey, focusing in particular on the perception of youth organizations and the concepts of “youth” and “youth participation and exclusion” as well as the impact of youth organizations on policy making and society. The first section performs a literature review on the historical development of youth organizations in Turkey and employs existing databases to analyse present circumstances affecting these movements. The backbone of the study, which is presented in the second section, is made up of field research conducted via three focus groups and 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with members of youth organizations and movements in Turkey. The aim is to understand how these organizations and movements perceive and frame the challenge of youth exclusion in Turkey as well as their potential to have a transformative impact on these challenges.