Europeanization and EU-Turkey relations: Three domains, four periods

Abstract

Europeanization is deservedly one of the most popular yet most volatile buzzwords for Turkish politics and EU-Turkey relations. This chapter takes stock of the Europeanization literature and examines the EU-Turkey relationship by referring to particular mechanisms and variants of Europeanization. The main argument is that Europeanization is a versatile and complex process covering vast areas of policy, politics, and polity, intertwined with larger domestic, regional, and global processes, which is not limited to Turkey's EU accession. The analysis refers to particular mechanisms and variants of Europeanization in four different phases between 1963 and early 2020: In the first period, 'Europeanization as rapprochement', Turkey's age-old Westernization project was consolidated through Europeanization. In the second period, 'Europeanization as democratic conditionality', there has been strong interest in the impact of Europeanization on particular aspects of domestic issues through conditionality and the EU's role as a 'democratization anchor'. In the third period, 'Europeanization as retrenchment', and the fourth period, 'Europeanization as denial', 'Europe' was no longer the lingua franca in the Turkish political landscape, a trend that is also associated with a 'de-Europeanization' turn in the literature. This does not mean that 'Europe' completely disappeared from domestic policy orientations, political debates, and identity negotiations. Rather, Ankara used 'Europe' strategically to justify actions that were criticized by the EU.