Turkish Labour Confederations and Turkey's Membership of the European Union

Abstract

The Turkish labour confederations have oscillated in their approach to the incorporation of their country into the European Union. This article explores the key question of how Turkish labour confederations have adapted to and evaluated the process of EU accession and what factors have affected their different trajectories. The research is guided by the question of how and why labour has either veered towards or away from Euroscepticism. The authors argue that although, to a certain extent, evaluations of economic policy, intra-organizational and ideological struggles and sectoral composition and differences can explain the stances expressed at the level of the confederations, it is ideological configurations, the nature of their relations with the state and the EU's attitudes to Turkish membership that largely influence the Turkish peak organizations' approach to the EU and accounts for the differences between the confederations.