Turkey's European Research Articles

Turkey's European Future: Behind the Scenes of America's Influence on EU–Turkey Relations – By N. Tocci

Turkey's European Future: Behind the Scenes of America's Influence on EU–Turkey Relations – By N. Tocci

Modern Turkey: people, state, and foreign policy in a globalised world

1. Introduction: Globalization, Turks and Turkey 2. The Kemalist Legacy: Cult, Ideology and Political Practice 3. Kemalism and State Security 4. Turkey's Europeanization: A Journey Without an Arrival? 5. From Autarky to Globalization: Turkey's Economic Transition 6. Turkey and the Kurdish Issue: A Transnationalized Domestic Problem 7. A New Foreign Policy For A Globalized Age? 8. Turkey Between East and West: A Bridge or Afloat? 9. Between Consumers and Producers: Turkey as an Energy Bridge? 10. The Armenian Genocide: A Foreign Policy Problem in a Globalized World 11. Migration, Turkey and Turks 12. The Fethullah Gulen Movement (and Turkish Al Qaeda) as Transnational Phenomena 13. Conclusions

Turkey's European future: behind the scenes of America's influence on EU-Turkey relations

A rapidly-changing nation and a key player in the Middle East, Turkey has long been centrally important to both the United States and the European Union. A major partner both of the EU and Turkey, the US has also been the most ardent and committed supporter of closer ties between them. Yet while Turkey's relations with the US and the EU have been intimately linked, they have not proceeded along two parallel planes. Nathalie Tocci tells the story of this dynamic triangular relationship, exploring how and why the US has shaped the course of relations among its allies. An empirical study with strong policy relevance, this volume draws on in-depth interviews and official documents to provide a succinct overview of the issues and stakeholders. Tocci argues that the Turkish situation can be viewed as a quintessential case study, tackling broader questions about US foreign policy in the region as a whole.

Democracy Anchored in the Presidential System: The ‘‘Solution Process’’, Constitution Making and the Future of Europeanization in Turkey

Since the beginning of 2013, the efforts to re-open the accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU have coincided with two important democratization processes, i.e., the solution of the Kurdish Issue and the termination of the 1982 Constitution. After the suspension of the accession negotiations in December 2006, Turkey seemed to distance itself from the EU and the process of the Europeanization of Turkey’s political system came to de facto halt. The article analyzes the recent democratization moves in this respect and argues that the ruling party’s objective of system change, that is the project of presidential system rather than Europeanization has seemed to guide the recent reform moves in Turkey

Ombudsmanship and Turkey's Europeanization in ‘World Society’

This article investigates Europeanization in a candidate country from a macro-sociological perspective. From the point of view of sociology, extant Europeanization studies treat culture only in a reductionist manner. In particular, ‘sender-receiver’ models overlook the domestic perceptions that translate, vernacularize or reframe exogenous conditionality. Furthermore, ‘goodness of fit’ approaches ‘bringing domestic agency back in’ misleadingly reinforce the image that the domestic and the external spheres are easily separated. By studying the ombudsmanship reform in Turkey, the article concludes that: (1) the content of Europeanization is not purely European; (2) the role for domestic norm entrepreneurs in leading cultural change is variable and constrained; and (3) domestic motivations for Europeanization include exogenous factors trespassing upon EU conditionality, that is, global culture/world society.

The Justice and Development Party and the EU: Political Pragmatism in a Changing Environment

The article focuses on the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and assesses whether the AKP has given up on Turkey's European Union (EU) membership goal since the beginning of negotiations in 2005. The article first reviews the AKP's EU policy, and then analyses shifts in the domestic and institutional contexts of cooperation and their effects on the AKP's EU policy preferences and policy action in the form of reforms. The article concludes with the observation that the AKP has reverted to a ‘passive activism’ in its approach to the EU due to the high cost of passing high-stake reforms.

The Nationalist Movement Party's Euroscepticism: Party Ideology Meets Strategy

This article explores what conditions or what specific issues lead to shifts in the positioning of the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) towards Turkey's European Union (EU) membership goal. The article first examines the MHP's background and characteristics and compares it with similar parties in Western Europe. Subsequently, the MHP's EU stance during 1999–2002 and in the post-2002 period is discussed. The article concludes that ideology matters for the MHP but that shifts in degrees of Euroscepticisim during particular periods can be explained by strategic considerations of the MHP, which respond to the party's electoral gains or losses, its position in the party political spectrum and whether it is in government, in opposition or outside parliament.

‘A Gap in the Bridge?’: European Union Civil Society Financial Assistance in Turkey

While external programmes developing civil society receive criticism for adhering to a Westernised, neo-Tocquevillean development model, the case of the European Union (EU) and Turkey is different. Turkey's European aspirations legitimise the efforts to ‘democratise’ its civil society, and the EU-propelled political reform programme has helped to expand the variety of voices in Turkish civil society. The impact of external funding on civil society, however, is contingent on the way the aims of this assistance are interpreted in the context of domestic political debates. This article uses examples from the Turkish women's movement to illustrate the complex socio-political debates about religion and secularism that inform NGO behaviour. By implementing an external agenda that draws on the European model of civil society, and which steers away from the government's domestic agenda for civil society, the EU policy has the potential to undermine the successes of the broader political reform process.

EVALUATING CURRENT TURKISH POLITICS IN LIGHT OF DEMOCRATIZATION AND EUROPEANIZATION THEORIES: THE CASE OF EDUCATION REFORMS

This article traces the achievements of democratization and Europeanization in Turkey through debates about reforming education. After a discussion on Europeanization and democratization theories and on how well these theories explain the reform process in Turkey, the article delves into the question of how education norms that were developed during the European integration have affected domestic policy in Turkey. Education is a policy area left to the discretion of national governments within the European Union; therefore supranational legislation governing education does not exist. Education is not a problematic issue in the Turkish accession negotiations. Nevertheless, the pressing need for reform is stated in the annual progress reports when the practice of education in Turkey contradicts the norms of human rights as well as cultural and democratic rights. Recent education reforms and debates about future developments in education suggest important trajectories for understanding the current state of Turkey–EU relations and how far the mechanisms offered by the EU and other European institutions have worked for the further democratization of Turkey. The fact that some norms are accepted while others are rejected proves the instrumental impact of Europeanization in Turkey. The article finds the norm diffusion model accords with the rational institutionalist model of Europeanization in explaining education reforms in Turkey.

The Turkish Military’s Autonomy, JDP Rule and the EU Reform Process in the 2000s: An Assessment of the Turkish Version of Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DECAF)

This article tackles the question of Europeanization in Turkey’s civil‐military relations and the extent to which the EU has served as an anchor in the civilian control over the Turkish Armed Forces. We argue that the EU membership process has necessitated democratization in civil‐military relations; EU support was not sufficient for fully integrated democratic control of the armed forces (DECAF) as there are still problems in the democratization of civil‐military relations. Since the 2000s, there has been a DECAF reform process taking place but due to historical deficiencies in Turkish polity, like the civilian incapacity to change the priority given to the military’s role in the making of the security culture, the European norms of DECAF, such as a constitutional division between the civilian and military authorities, political neutrality of the military and parliamentary control of the defense budget, is formal. In the first part, we aim to give background information to DECAF reforms in Turkey. The second part discusses Justice and Development Party (JDP)–Turkish General Staff (TGS) relations between 2002 and 2007. The third part assesses civil‐military relations in the period since 2007. The last section pays special attention to the significance of the question of a Turkish way to Europeanization especially in the field of civil‐ military relations.

Islam and democratization in Turkey: secularism and trust in a divided society

The history of Turkish modernization has been inextricably linked with the question of secularism. From the advent of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Islam was held responsible for the underdevelopment and eventual demise of the Ottoman Empire. Based on the laïcité of the Second French Republic, the secularization programme of modern Turkey's founder, Kemal Atatürk, entailed the full subjugation of Islam to the State, its eradication from the public sphere and its limitation into a very narrowly defined private sphere. The transition of Turkey to multiparty politics in 1946 was linked with a rising role of Islam in the public sphere. Islam became a crucial element in the political vocabulary of peripheral political forces which challenged the supremacy of the secularist, Kemalist bureaucratic elite. While a number of military coups aimed – among other things – to control religion, Turkish political Islam showed remarkable resilience and adaptability. Most recently, the transformation of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) into the strongest proponent of Turkey's European Union (EU) integration brought Turkey closer than ever to EU membership, challenged the monopoly which the Kemalist elite enjoyed as the representative of Western political values and suggested a novel liberal version of secularism. Yet Turkey has been embroiled since 2007 in successive political crises which had secularism as their focal point. This article argues that the transformation of Turkish political Islam has produced an alternative, liberal version of secularism; yet, it has not resolved deep social divisions. Building a liberal consensus between religious conservatives and secularists is imperative for the resolution of deep social divisions in Turkey. The European Union as a guarantor and initiator of reform could play a major role in building trust between the secularist and the religious conservative segments of society.

Temps et contretemps d’une européanisation. Le cas du mouvement contre l’exploitation aurifère en Egée du nord

It is generally admitted among scholars that relations between Turkey and the EU are a set of opportunities for different categories of actors, particularly those mobilized contentious actors. Not with standing the importance of this European dimension, this present case study on the Europeanization of a local example of mobilization, allows us to outline a very balanced situation. Thus, through the combination of the boomerang pattern model of M. Keck and K. Sikkink and the typology of Europeanization modes by S. Tarrow and D. Imig, the analysis of this case, shows the ambiguities, the uncertainty and, sometimes, the deficiencies of Europeanization. Finally, a local form of Europeanization in Turkey appears first as the result of the activity of rare actors who are able to play the role of interface with Europe (a capacity that strengthens their position in Turkey and abroad).

Party Preferences and Economic Voting in Turkey (Now That the Crisis Is Over)

The purpose of this study is to re-examine the factors that shape party preferences in Turkey by estimating an individual vote intention function. The economic variables in the empirical model are items that can be used to test the conventional `economic voting' hypotheses, i.e. whether individuals' economic evaluations about the past or the near future affect their party choice. In an earlier article, based on data from 2002, evidence was found in favour of these hypotheses. Those who had been affected adversely by the economic crisis of 2001 were found to be very unlikely to vote for the incumbent parties of the time. In the present article, we focus on comparing the characteristics of the intended voters of the currently ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with those of other parties. According to multinomial logit estimates, those who make the more optimistic evaluations about the state of the economy are more likely to vote for the AKP. There is also an obvious increase in the number of AKP voters who support Turkey's European Union membership.

The role of temporality and interaction in the Turkey-EU relationship

AbstractThis paper introduces the two factors of temporality and interaction, which are not well-researched within the Turkey-EU relationship. I suggest that these two factors are important for understanding the process of Europeanization in Turkey and explaining the ups and downs in the long-lasting relationship. After briefly examining the two historical periods of the Turkey-EU relationship — that is, from 1959 to 1970 and from 1970 to 1999 — the paper mainly focuses on the more recent period following the Helsinki Summit of 1999 and shows how the factors of temporality and interaction operated differently between 1999 and 2004, and after 2004, turning from positive to negative. Having presented the historical evidence, the paper concludes by emphasizing the close interaction between the factors of temporality, interaction and the process of Europeanization in the Turkish context and suggesting that the analysis of these two factors opens up new possibilities for comparative research on other accession and candidate countries.

Turkey's Europeanization

Turkey's presidential and parliamentary election processes in 2007 caused a debate over the nature of the country's Europeanization - its gradual adaptation to the EU's norms in domestic and foreign policy realms, as well as its secular modernization - in the course of the EU accession process. The debate revolves around the question of whether the Justice and Development party- led liberal-democratic reforms at home will result in Turkey's eventual membership in the EU - suggesting that Turkey's European identity would no longer be disputed at home or abroad - or whether Turkey will transform into a moderate Islamic country, where the increasing public salience of Islam will in the end erode the secular, unitary, and European character of the regime. This debate is currently unfolding at two levels, domestic and external. Domestically, the Justice and Development party (JDP) and its intellectual supporters have been confronting the traditional secular elites.1 Externally, contending blocks of politicians and intellectuals in the European Union have been trying to assess the degree of Turkey's commitment to, as well as its readiness for, EU membership.Recently, this debate intensified when Turkey's constitutional court agreed to hear the case filed against the JDP by the chief state judge. The judge wanted to ban the party, as well as its influential political members, on the grounds that they represented increasing threats to Turkey's secular character. High-level representatives ofthe European Union, including the head ofthe EU Commission and the commissioner in charge of enlargement process, have expressed their discomfort with this particular development and made it clear that European public opinion would find the idea of Turkey's governing party being closed down by the constitutional court odd (and indeed in the final verdict, the court argued it was the focal point of antisecular activity, but did not ban it). On numerous occasions they have emphasized that secularism in Turkey should never justify the banning of political parties or the suspension ofthe democratization process.2That said, this article argues that Turkey's decades -long Europeanization process might not be sustainable in the years to come, for two main reasons. First, the traditional supporters of this process in Turkey, mainly the secular elites, have recently adopted Euro- skeptic attitudes and become the champions of anti-EU sentiment. To the secular elites, JDP's support of Turkey's EU membership appears to be more tactical than strategic, in the sense that the continuation ofthe EU accession process has been considered by the JDP leadership to be vital for the party's ability to secure external and internal legitimacy in the eyes of its critics. This article underlines the point that absent the support ofthe secular elites for the Europeanization process, it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve Ataturk's goal to have Turkey become a part of contemporary civilization via inclusion in the EU. Second, the ongoing internal debate in Turkey seems to have weakened the hands of those in the EU who have thus far tried to justify Turkey's membership on the basis of normative grounds. Turkey's internal debate has been mirrored inside the EU in that a group of normative supporters of Turkey's accession, the so-called liberal cosmopolitanists, applauds Turkey's liberal democratization under the leadership of the JDP government, whereas the other group of normative supporters, the so-called traditionalists, shares the worries of Turkey's secular elites, yet at the same time fears the negative consequences of militarization in the name of protecting secularism.Against such a background, we first analyze the dynamics of the ongoing debate in Turkey by paying particular attention to the concerns of the traditional secular elites about the intentions of the JDP, particularly with regard to Turkey's Islamization. Then an attempt will be made to highlight the growing schism between Turkey's normative supporters inside the EU. …

The Europeanization of Turkey and its impact on the Cyprus problem

The European Council Summit in Helsinki in 1999 was a turning point in Turkey–EU relations. It radically transformed the nature of the relations through granting Turkey an official candidate status...

From the Myth of European Union Accession to Disillusion: Implications for Religious and Ethnic Politicization in Turkey

At the present time, there are no clear outcomes in Turkey's European Union (EU) accession process. By the end of the two years following the rise of the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the government in 2002, Turkey's accession process entered into a stalemate. Potent political opposition to the Turkish candidacy in Europe has escalated, despite a staunch Turkish political commitment since 1999 to meet the Copenhagen Criteria for admission. In this article, we argue that Turkey's EU accession process has contributed to opening political spaces for Islamism and ethno-nationalism in the country, ironically producing societal and political forces undermining Turkish membership. We inquire first into the practical reasons obstructing Turkey's membership to the Union and second into the societal and political implications of the continuation of the bleak possibility of EU membership for Turkey. As far as the latter is considered, our focus is limited to an analysis of the politicization and institutionalization of the ethnic and Islamist politics in Turkey within the process of democracy. By the end of the two years following the rise of the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the Turkish government in 2002, Turkey's European Union accession process had entered into a stalemate. Paradoxically, the Islamists, who had broken away from the traditionally Islamist oriented Virtue Party (FP) and founded the AKP, became the self-proclaimed conservative democrats of Turkey and fervent supporters of EU membership. The reason for this enthusiasm was strategic and two-fold: On the one hand, the AKP pragmatically drew upon the discourses of human rights and democracy, which constituted the main premises of the EU accession requirements, against the secular state establishment for a political opening to legitimately maneuver in. On the other, the party used its successfully constructed pro-EU face to gather support from different sectors of the society, crosscutting class and ideological divisions. Hence, it garnered support among provincial capitalists, small bourgeoisie, urbanized and rural poor, left intelligentsia, as well as the high society of the business world, and emerged as the new center-right political party - analogous to what the Motherland Party (ANAP) and the True Path Party (DYP) had previously been. Nevertheless, while the AKP's liberal policies remained mainly in terms of extensive privatization of the public sector and a commitment to an IMF-led marketization, it failed to pass the test on issues such as freedom of expression, representation, transparency, accountability, and social equity ..However,theseshortcomingshave,by. byHowever, these shortcomings have, by and large, been ignored by a majority of the press and intelligentsia that faced one form or another of pressure, and/or collaborated out of mutual interest. Undeniably, Turkey's EU candidacy has been diplomatically troubling for the EU since the official negotiations began in December 2004. Political opposition to the Turkish candidacy in Europe has escalated, despite a staunch political commitment by Turkey to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. 1 Indeed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed the attitude shared by many European leaders when she recently expressed doubts about the viability of Turkish membership in the EU. 2 French President Nicolas Sarkozy is another ardent opponent of Turkey's accession. The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, also declared that any EU enlargement after the membership of Bulgaria and Romania would need to wait until all constitutional and structural issues within the EU had been worked out. 3 It is not surprising then that the EU suspended talks with Turkey in December 2006 on eight policy chapters - among them, the conflict between Turkey and the Greek-majority government of Cyprus. 4 In Turkey, the pro-PKK (Partiya Karkeren-I Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers Party)/ pro-Kurdish groups, including the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP, recently renamed the Democratic Society Party or DTP) are among those that experienced one of the highest levels of frustration with the EU accession process. …

Conservative globalists versus defensive nationalists: political parties and paradoxes of Europeanization in Turkey

The period since the December 1999 Helsinki summit has been a time of remarkable economic and political change in Turkey. The EU impact was already evident in the 1990s, with the 1995 Customs Union...

Turkey and the European Union: internal dynamics and external challenges

Introduction: Turkey at the Threshold of the EU J.S.Joseph The Economic Dimension of Turkey's EU Membership: A Stock-taking Exercise at the Start of Accession Negotiations M.Ugur Between Fedora and Fez: Modern Turkey's Troubled Road to Democratic Consolidation and the Pluralizing Role of Erdogan's Pro-Islam Government S.Kotsovilis The EU Challenge: A View from the Turkish Grand National Assembly N.G.Loizides & E.Ersin Relations between the State and Civil Society in Turkey: Does the EU Make a Difference? W.Weber The Kurdish Problem in International Politics M.M.Gunter The Europeanization of Turkey's Kurdish Question N.Tocci The Greek Variable in EU-Turkish Relations A.Kazamias Turkey's Quest for EU Membership and the Cyprus Problem T.Bahcheli Security Implications of Turkey's March toward EU Membership M.Kibaroglu The US and Turkey's Quest for EU Membership O.Taspinar The Iraq War and the Troubled US-Turkish Alliance: Some Conclusions for Europe O.Kayhan & D.Lindley

Turkey's European Aspirations to the EU

European Union is nowadays facing one of its biggest challenges and opportunities since its foundation. An answer, which will be sent to Turkey, will bring overwhelming repercussions in wide and large Muslim world. e far-sight approach of European Council can open new stage in evolution of European identity. The European Union’s aim is a safe, secure and wealthy continent, capable to peacefully cooperate with other states.