Ulusal ve Uluslararası Sosyoloji ve Ekonomi Dergisi

Population Movements (Migratıons): Economic and Strategic Analysis

Levent AKSU — 2025-12-11

Migration is defined as the temporary or permanent movement of individuals or groups from one place of residence to another due to economic, social, political, or environmental factors. Migration is not merely a spatial relocation process; it is a multidimensional socioeconomic phenomenon that reshapes demographic structures, labor markets, human capital accumulation, urbanization dynamics, and social relations. This mobility directly influences countries’ population size, age composition, dependency ratios, and development trajectories. Therefore, migration has become a strategically significant field of analysis in both demographic studies and the economic growth literature.

Migration is generally categorized into two main types: internal and international migration. Internal migration refers to population movements within a country’s borders, such as rural-to-urban, interregional, or urban-to-urban migration. In the case of Türkiye, internal migration accelerated after the 1950s as a result of industrialization, urbanization, and regional inequalities. Labor mobility, wage differentials, access to education and healthcare, and regional development disparities have been the primary drivers of this internal mobility. International migration, on the other hand, involves crossing national borders and occurs due to economic opportunities, war, political repression, education, security concerns, or family reunification. International migration significantly shapes the labor force structure, cultural patterns, public expenditure dynamics, and the economic growth potential of both sending and receiving countries.

Migration theories aim to explain the causes, mechanisms, and outcomes of migratory movements. Classical theories include Ravenstein’s “Laws of Migration,” Lee’s (1966) “push–pull model,” Harris–Todaro’s (1970) urban unemployment framework, and Lewis’s dual economy approach. Modern theories extend this foundation by incorporating human capital mobility, world-systems theory, migration networks, migration systems theory, the new economics of labor migration (Stark & Bloom, 1985), and contemporary governance-based frameworks. Collectively, these theories demonstrate that migration is shaped not only by individual decision-making but also by structural conditions, global economic relations, and the embeddedness of migrants in social networks.

The push–pull framework represents the most influential explanatory model in migration studies. Push factors encompass negative conditions that drive individuals away from their place of origin, such as unemployment, poverty, insecurity, and environmental hazards. Pull factors, in contrast, refer to the favorable conditions in destination regions—higher wages, safer living environments, access to education and healthcare, and broader social rights. According to this model, migration is the outcome of a cost–benefit optimization process; however, this decision is heavily mediated by societal structures and global dynamics.

A central dimension of the study is brain drain, defined as the emigration of highly educated and skilled individuals to countries offering superior economic, academic, and professional opportunities. In Türkiye, brain drain intensified particularly after the 1980s due to political instability, economic fluctuations, low wages, insufficient R&D investments, unemployment, professional dissatisfaction, and limitations on academic and personal freedoms. Brain drain generates significant economic costs, including the loss of human capital, reduced productivity, weakened innovation capacity, and diminished long-term growth potential. Nonetheless, it may also produce positive externalities, such as knowledge transfer, skilled diaspora networks, and transnational linkages.

Finally, population movement policies constitute a comprehensive framework aimed at managing the social, economic, and strategic effects of migration. An effective migration policy should incorporate internal migration management that supports balanced regional development, integration strategies for migrants, mechanisms that reduce outward brain drain while encouraging reverse migration, regulatory systems that differentiate between regular and irregular migration, and long-term planning grounded in human capital development. Such a policy approach seeks to amplify the positive contributions of migration to economic growth while minimizing potential social and fiscal costs.

El-Alûsī’s Al-Jawāb Al-Fasīh And His Critıcisms of Al-Kindī’s Views on Christ (Miracle–The Miracles of Christ, The Christian Creed, The Trinity and Its Hypostases)

Mehmet GÜNDÜZ — 2025-12-11

his article analyzes the criticisms directed by Nūʿmān al-Ālūsī—one of the leading figures of the 19th-century scholarly milieu of Baghdad—in his refutation al-Jawāb al-Fasīh, against the Christ-centered theological claims attributed to ʿAbd al-Masīḥ b. Isḥāq al-Kindī in the so-called Hāshimī–Kindī correspondence (miracle–the miracles of Christ, the Christian creed, the Trinity and its hypostases). The study adopts a historical-hermeneutical approach that takes into account (i) the conceptual legacy of the early Islamic–Christian polemical tradition, (ii) the intellectual and socio-cultural context of the 19th century in which al-Ālūsī lived, and (iii) the theological logic of the intertextual debate. Through a text-centered and comparative reading of primary sources, it is demonstrated that al-Ālūsī reframed notions of miracle, divinity, and revelation by taking the principle of tawḥīd as the normative axis, and subjected the conceptual ambiguities of the Trinity and its hypostases to criticism by means of both rational argumentation (contradiction, multiplicity of eternals, substance–accident distinctions) and scriptural references and exegetical strategies. The findings reveal that al-Ālūsī located the miracles of Christ not as ontological proofs of divinity, but as violations of cosmic habit “by God’s permission” (bi-idhni’Llāh) within the framework of prophetic verification, while the articles of faith pertaining to the Christian creed (incarnation, atonement, divine sonship) were found to be irreconcilable with the principles of divine simplicity and tawḥīd. Moreover, al-Ālūsī’s linguistic and rhetorical analyses (the distinction between metaphor and literal meaning, lexical polysemy, and internal textual coherence) reinforced the argumentative structure of the polemical work and carried the rational–scriptural balance of the Islamic kalām tradition into a systematic framework of defense against Christian theology.

Critical of Schumpeter's Great Gap Thesis in The Context of The History of Islamic Economic Thought

Mücahit KUMANDAVEREN — 2025-12-11

In his cult work titled "History of Economic Analysis", published posthumously, Schumpeter begins his economic analysis with Ancient Greece and defines the 500-year period between 774 and 1274 as the "Great Gap". The thesis, which was put forward with a Eurocentric and one-sided perspective, does not coincide with the historical facts. Because the period that Schumpeter defines as "the great void" corresponds to a dark period for the Western world, but a bright period for the Islamic world. This period is the period in which Europe lived its dark middle ages and the Islamic world lived its bright "Golden Age". While there was no significant development in the Western world in the Middle Ages, the Islamic world witnessed scientific developments one after another. Not only in the field of economics, but also in all imaginable branches of science apart from economics, important works have been put forward. In fields such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, chemistry and philosophy, very important developments have been made that shape the world of science. In this period, names such as Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, er-Razi and Ibn Heysem, each of whom were giants, and who enlightened the whole world, including the Western world, for centuries, grew up in the Islamic world. Many Western scientists, thinkers and writers, especially Newton, benefited from the views and theses of Muslim scholars. Although Islamic economics did not systematically manifest as a separate discipline until the modern period, economic issues and concepts were dealt with extensively in Islamic sources. Both in the holy book of Islam, the Qur'an, and in Hz. In the hadiths of the Prophet, the main principles, rules and limits of the Islamic economic theory were clearly revealed, and in the sources of fiqh, the method of fiqh, kalam and mysticism, which are the carrier and interpretive texts of Islam, economic issues were discussed and detailed within the framework of the main principles. Therefore, Schumpeter's "Great Gap" thesis is a product and consequence of his sick Eurocentric perspective and the traditional and prejudiced attitude of the West towards the Islamic world, Islamic concepts and Muslim scholars.