Impact of EU's Decisions on Euro-Skepticism of Two Turkish Nationalist and Religious Peripheral Parties

Abstract

IMPACT OF EU'S DECISIONS ON EURO-SKEPTICISM OF TWO TURKISH NATIONALIST AND RELIGIOUS PERIPHERAL PARTIES By Imdat Ozen, Ph. D. A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Comn~onwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2007 Major Director: Judyth L. Twigg, PhD Associate Professor and Interim Director L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs This study achieved a group of objectives such as measuring the impact of the EU's decisions on trust-based, nationalism-based, and religion-based Euro-skepticism, measuring the impact of the EU's decisions on overall Euro-skepticism, and searching and investigating the reasons behind Euro-skepticism in detail by conducting content analysis on statements of two Turkish nationalist and religious peripheral parties' elites. The study basically asked two important questions about Euro-skepticism and answered each question by testing four main hypotheses. The hypotheses were tested on two different parties, ,the Nationalist Action Party and the Felicity Party, and on two different events (on December 17,2004 and on October 03,2005). Since the study had 4 general hypotheses, the total hypothesis testing occurred 16 times. To be able to prove the hypotheses, the content analysis technique was used on the data that was collected from two newspapers: pro-MHP Ortadogu and pro-SP Milli Gazete. Each hypothesis was tested by using the two sample z-Test formula. The findings show that the two decisions by the EU did not have any impact on religion-based and trust-based Euro-skepticism. Only the first event had an impact on the nationalism-based Euro-skepticism of both political parties and overall Euro-skepticism of the MHP. The findings showed that 3 of the testing had a negative impact and 13 of them had no impact at all. No positive impact was found at the 0.05 level. Only one of them, trust-based, showed significance at the 0.10 level. The results showed that the decisions of the European Union either did not change the Euro-skepticism or if there was a change it was in a negative way. By the end of the second event, trust-based Euroskepticism of SP showed a decrease at the 0.10 level. The results of this study were associated with the social identity theory, with a group's status as a peripheral party, and the policy requirements of the EU regarding Turkey's sensitive issues.