Europeanization as a hegemonic process: the counter-hegemonic coal phase-out struggle in Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study examines how anti-coal groups – national and international environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and influential think tanks – conduct a counter-hegemonic struggle to Europeanize the coal exit process in Turkey. By undertaking intellectual leadership in Turkey’s growing authoritarian political-economic space, anti-coal groups proactively have shaped the discourse on the coal phase-out debates within civil society. To delegitimize the official hegemonic frame promoting coal for energy independence, supply security, and rapid economic development, they have appealed to the European Green Deal as a powerful discursive tool to create necessary consent for a coal exit in Turkey. Based on the Europeanization perspective complemented with the Gramscian insights that enabled the consideration of the power relations and vested interests within energy transition, the study reveals that the anti-coal groups have conducted a counter-hegemonic discursive struggle for the Europeanization of Turkey’s policy of coal exit.