Friends or Foes? A Network Approach to the Relations among Women’s Organizations in Turkey

In this paper we investigate the state of networks among women’s organizations in the capital city of Turkey. There is a considerably widespread opinion among Turkish policy makers, scholars and public that networks among NGOs should be strengthened for increased effectiveness, and that currently these networks are not strong enough. The starting point of this research has been the question of whether this view of networks can be demonstrated empirically. Our study is composed of detailed interviews with 28 active women’s organizations concerning their ties with other organizations. We analyse the physical architecture of their networks. We investigate how inter-organizational networks emerge, what barriers exist for their effectiveness, and what benefits do organizations achieve from them. Our results reveal that while people working in various organizations are intensively involved in personal linkages, resulting in a very dense network of informal relations between organizations, these are hardly transformed into collaborative actions in the context of formal projects where parties commit their resources for longer periods. We investigate the reasons underlying this phenomenon.