Continuities and changes in the minority policy of Greece: the case of western thrace

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2005
Chousein, Ali
This thesis analyzes the Greek minority policy of Western Thrace by dwelling on the history of the Muslim Turkish minority of Western Thrace from the beginning of 1920s until today. Until the early 1990s, changes in the Greek policy of Western Thrace had not been observed. However, the year 1991 marks a turning point both in the attitude of Greece towards the Muslim Turkish minority and in the history of the Western Thracian minority. As a result of the change in the Greek minority policy of Western Thrace there has been developments in the living conditions of the Minority. It is the aim of this thesis to explore to what extent there has been occurring changes and to what extent problems continue to affect the members of the Minority. Moreover, this thesis aims to analyze the actors that played a quite significant role in the Western Thracian policy change of the Greek state. After evaluating the situation in Western Thrace in the pre-1990 and post-1990 period this thesis argues that while on the one hand it is the economic and social domains that changes have been observed, on the other hand continuities in the Greek policy of the Muslim Turkish minority regarding the political and educational issues keep on affecting the members of this Minority. The aim of this thesis is to show that as a result of such a ءpartial change̕ today̕s situation in Western Thrace is better than that of pre-1990s but some significant problems of the Minority still remain unresolved due to the unaltered stance of the Greek state towards some issues of the Western Thracian Minority.

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Citation Formats
A. Chousein, “Continuities and changes in the minority policy of Greece: the case of western thrace,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2005.