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Turkey and the European Union: Processes of Europeanization

Almost eight years on from the start of accession negotiations, the view of Turkey-European Union (EU) relations is somber. The Union is too busy with its enlargement fatigue and economic turmoil, whereas Turkey has been experiencing a confidence boom as a result of its impressive economic performance and proactive foreign policy, pushing the two parties further apart. However, despite this gloomy picture in Turkey’s EU membership negotiations, change has been and is taking place in Turkish politics.

 

Almost eight years on from the start of accession negotiations, the view of Turkey-European Union (EU) relations is somber. The Union is too busy with its enlargement fatigue and economic turmoil, whereas Turkey has been experiencing a confidence boom as a result of its impressive economic performance and proactive foreign policy, pushing the two parties further apart. However, despite this gloomy picture in Turkey’s EU membership negotiations, change has been and is taking place in Turkish politics. A crucial question, therefore, is without the full membership perspective what is triggering change in Turkey? Is this change a sign of a continuing process of ‘Europeanization’? If yes, how do we explain this? How far does it relate to the appeal of the EU membership and how far can Turkey’s various policy fields be Europeanized? What are the limits of Europeanization and under what conditions does it work better? Why are there diverging levels of transformation in different policy fields? These are some of the questions Turkey and the European Union: Processes of Europeanization comprehensively answers.

The book is an exercise beyond the futile question of whether Turkey will ever become a member of the Union, for it focuses on the transformations taking place on the ground. Adopting Europeanization to study domestic change is not a novel approach for sure; however, this edited volume provides a comprehensive source for understanding transformation in several policy fields and provides convincing answers to the above questions. The book is comprised of 12 chapters; all dedicated to separate policy areas, ranging from identity to constitutional transformation, feminism to social policy.

The three components of Europeanization are construction, diffusion and institutionalization of rules, procedures and norms. As for Turkey, similar to other candidate countries, the construction process has already been mostly completed, i.e. the Union has a defined acquis communautaire. How far the candidate country will transform, or the rules will be diffused is the challenge. The misfit and membership conditionality are the two crucial components of the Europeanization process. Legislative change does not always guarantee the long-term applicability of new rules and procedures, thus institutionalization is also a vital concept.

The first chapter by Tanja Borzel, a well-known scholar in this field, lays the theoretical background and questions if Turkey is a sui-generis case in Europeanization studies. Borzel asks a key question, “why there is Europeanization despite the […] unfavourable conditions and why the domestic impact of the EU has been differential, i.e. varies across policies and institutions?” (p. 9). Borzel's answer is about the degree of EU conditionality helping the domestic actors gain or hold political power. She underlines the fact that Europeanization is linked to domestic actors' survival strategies regardless of the costs incurred by change or the dim prospect of membership. Indeed, this explanation holds true for the Turkish case, where the survival of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was closely linked to the EU membership process, at least during its first term. Yet, the difference is about domestic coalitions empowered by the EU membership process, which Brozel defines as not necessarily pro-western nor liberal in the Turkish case. Therefore, the survival strategy of domestic actors is a vital explanation for Europeanization, which is more likely to take place when the EU reforms overlap with the agenda of domestic political actors.

After providing the theoretical background, the book inquires in detail specific policy fields and assesses Turkey’s level of Europeanization. For instance, Cigdem Nas inquiring about the Europeanization of Turkish identity, a rather contentious issue both in Europe and Turkey, interprets recent dialogue and negotiation efforts with the aim to prevent use of force in Turkey's neighbourhood as a sign of Europeanization. She also acknowledges the increasing emphasis by the elites of the ruling party on the regional dimension of Turkey's identity with its Ottoman past and Muslim belief, yet she concludes on a pretty optimistic tone on the Europeanization of Turkish identity. For Nas, EU norms and values are to a degree internalized by the actors of Turkish politics.

However, Yonca Ozer is more cautious when dwelling on democratization in Turkey. She compares three time frames in terms of Turkey's democratization efforts; before 1999, between 1999 and 2005, and the post-2005 era. Her findings concur with other chapters that when there is a credible conditionality, transformation takes place. Since 2005, the speed of reforms slowed down parallel to the increasingly dim perspective of membership. Indeed, the problem regarding democratization is not only the slowing down of reforms but the reversal of the already adopted ones, or due to lack of internalization of norms and rules, deficiencies in practice, which seems to be a true challenge for Turkey.

Another very relevant chapter in view of Turkey's effort to prepare a 'civilian' constitution is by Bertil Emrah Oder on Turkish constitutional transformation and the EU. Oder inquires chronologically as to the influence of the EU on Turkey's constitutional transformation, enlisting innumerable legislative packages since 1980s. Oder highlights an important point, which is the impossibility of equating removing military tutelage with an automatic democratization. A real constitutionalism can only be achieved through enhanced judicial review, civil society, freedom of expression and association as well as ideological pluralism, which still seems to fall short in Turkey.

Although, Europeanization has been studied in detail, there is not enough reflexivism on the concept itself. In the simplest way, Europeanization is defined as transforming of domestic policy structures to be in line with the EU processes and it has all positive connotations. Yet, one area where this rosy picture becomes complicated is the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA). Catherine Macmillan discusses about the Europeanization- or lack thereof- of migration and asylum policies and goes for the quick assumption that September 11 was a crucial moment in the securitization of migration in the EU. Scholars like Didier Bigo and Jef Huysmans already revealed that the roots of securitization could be traced much earlier. Migration and asylum are the two particular areas where the Union did not live up to expectations and the liberal assumptions about the Union do not necessarily hold true.

All in all, this book is a great contribution to the literature in several ways. First, it provides up to date info on various policy fields of Turkey’s transformation and the level of harmonization. Secondly, and more importantly, it provides a theoretically grounded picture of Turkey-EU relations in understanding domestic transformation. Although in the last decade there have been various researches on assessing Europeanization of Turkey in specific policy fields, compiling several of them in a book is surprisingly a belated enterprise. It is a scholarly, comprehensive, and a powerful account of Turkey's transformation or lack thereof.


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