Contesting for turkey's political 'centre': Domestic politics, identity conflicts and the controversy over EU membership

Journal of Contemporary European Studies

Volumn 18, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 361-376

  Öniş, Ziya ^a  

^a KOÇ UNIVERSITY   (Turkey)

Author keywords

Democratization; Euro scepticism; Europeanization; Istanbul; Political parties; Turkey

Indexed keywords

EID: 78049285365     PISSN: 14782804     EISSN: 14782790     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14782804.2010.507919     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. See, in this context, Tsoukalis, L. (2003) What Kind of Europe? (New York: Oxford University Press).
2. For a perceptive discussion of Turkey's recent Europeanization process, see Griogoriadis, I.N. (2009) Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
3. Uǧur, M. (1999) The European Union and Turkey: An Anchor/credibility Dilemma (Aldershot: Ashgate).
4. The coalition government which came into power following the April 1999 elections was composed of the left-nationalist the Democratic-Left Party (the DSP), the ultra-nationalist the Nationalist Action Party (the MHP) and the centre-right Motherland Party (the ANAP). Given the ideological orientation of the parties that made up the coalition government, it was quite surprising and paradoxical that this particular government was responsible for some of the major EU-related reforms during the summer of 2002 prior to the AKP era.
5. For a good collection of essays on the AKP, see Cizre, Ü. (Ed.) (2008) Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party (London: Routledge).
6. Two other important contributions include Özbudun, E. and Hale, W. (2009) Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey (London: Routledge)
7. Daǧi, I. (2005), Transformation of Islamic political identity in Turkey: rethinking the West and Westernization, Turkish Studies, 6(1), pp. 21-37.
8. It is important to stress that Sarkozy was an influential political figure and a potential Presidential candidate at the time of the opening up of accession negotiations with Turkey. He was elected as President in 2007. In 2004, Chirac was still the President and supported the opening of negotiations with Turkey and full membership against the majority of his party. There has been a change in the position of government when Sarkozy took Office in 2007. There is no doubt, however, that Sarkozy emerged as a powerful voice against Turkey's full-membership and started to make a deep impact both in the domestic politics of EU member states and Turkey long before his election as the President of France.
9. Euro-barometer results indicate public support for EU membership of slightly over 50% for July 2007. The results are available online at http://ec.europe.eu/public-opinion/index_en.htm.
10. For a good discussion of the negotiating framework and its limitations from a Turkish point of view, see Kirişçi, K. (2004) The December 2004 European council decision on Turkey: is it an historic turning point?, The Middle East Review of International Affairs, 8(4).
11. See Fuat Keyman, E. & Aydin, S. (2004) The principle of fairness in Turkey-EU relations, Turkish Policy Quarterly, 3, pp. 83-85.
12. In the reports of the European Commission, Turkey is frequently criticized for its poor human rights record, for its treatment of minorities, insufficient implementation of reforms it has adopted, corruption, for its relations with neighbours and so on. The progress report of 2004 indicates that 'Turkey's accession would be different from previous enlargements because of the combined impact of Turkey's population, size, geographical location, economic, security and military potential'. European Commission, Regular Report on Turkey's Progress Towards Accession, 2004, available online at http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/pdf/key_documents/2004/rr_tr_2004_en.pdf.
13. The term 'Christian club' argument has frequently been used by the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan. In 2004, Erdoǧan said that 'if the EU is not a Christian club, if it is not simply an economic entity but rather a set of political values, then Turkey must be in' (Euroactiv.com, 22 October 2004). More recently, Erdoǧan has reiterated the theme of the EU as a 'Christian Club'. In a recent visit to Poland in 2009, Erdoǧan stated that 'Without Turkey, EU is a Christian Club' and linked this to the issue of 'unfair treatment' during the era of the country's accession negotiations. He added that the EU ought to require the fulfillment of the same conditions as it demands from other member states. He also added that the EU displays a 'preconceived' and rather than a 'fair' position towards Turkey. The statement is available online at http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/76920/-without-turkey-eu-is-christian-club-turkish-prime-minister-.html
14. For a good discussion of these issues, see Rumelili, B. (2008) Negotiating Europe: EU-Turkey relations from an identity perspective, Insight Turkey, 10(1), pp. 97-110.
15. In the case of Leyla Şahin versus Turkey of June 2004, the European Court of Human Rights decided in favour of Turkey. The banning of headscarves at the University of Istanbul did not violate Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
16. Article 301 is a controversial article of the Turkish penal code making it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government.
17. The Halki seminary was, until its closure by the Turkish authorities in 1971, the main school of theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church's Patriarchate of Constantinople. The European Union has raised the issue of reopening the school as part of its negotiations over Turkish accession to the EU. With the new democratization impulse in the summer of 2009, there are some indications that the government may finally display the political will necessary to resolve this long-standing issue before the end of 2009.
18. Even in France, however, public elites are divided on the issue of Turkish membership. There appears to be certainly much more support on the left for Turkish membership. Indeed, a former Prime Minister, Michel Rocard, has written a monograph entitled Oui a la Turquie, Turkish Translation: Avrupa Birliǧi Yolunda Türkiye'ye Evet (Istanbul: Yapi{dotless} Kredi Yayi{dotless}nlari{dotless}, 2009) outlining what he considered to be the benefits of Turkish membership for the future course of the European integration process.
19. It is interesting to note that French and German public opinions are on the same line, with 60 per cent of the public being against Turkish membership based on Euro-barometer surveys. Moreover, this pattern has been broadly stable over the past few years.
20. For a detailed treatment of the components of the pro-Turkey coalition within the EU see Öniş, Z. (2006) Turkey's Encounters with the New Europe: multiple transformations, inherent dilemmas and the challenges ahead, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, 8(3), pp. 279-298.
21. See Yilmaz, H. (2008) Turkish populism and the anti-EU rhetoric, Paper presented to the Conference on 'Perceptions and Misperceptions in the EU and Turkey: Stumbling Blocks on the Road to Accession' organized by the Centre for European Security Studies (CESS) and Turkey Institute, Leiden, Holland (June). The nationalist mind-set in Turkey has been heavily influenced by the 'Sevres Syndrome', a sense of being encircled by enemies attempting the destruction of the Turkish state.
22. See Kemal Kirişçi, Turkey and the Mediterranean, in Stavridis, S., Couloumbis, T. & Veremis, T. (Eds.) The Foreign Policies of the European Union's Mediterranean States and Applicant Countries in the 1990s (London: MacMillan Press, 1999), pp. 280-281. This kind of thinking clearly characterizes the mindset of key element of the powerful Euro-sceptic bloc in Turkey which would include the two major opposition parties of the current era, the Republican People's Party (the CHP) and the Nationalist Action Party (the MHP) as well the major components of the Turkish state bureaucracy including the military.
23. For a good analysis with special reference to the Dutch context, see Cuperus, R. (2009) Europe's revolt of populism and the Turkish question, in Volten, P.M.E. (Ed.) Perceptions and Misperceptions in the EU and Turkey: Stumbling Blocks on the Path to Accession (Groningen: The Centre of European Security Studies, Harmonie Papers), 23, pp. 131-154.
24. For an in depth analysis of the Turkish party system, see Sayari{dotless}, S. (Ed.) New Directions in Turkish Politics, special issue of Turkish Studies, 8(2) (July 2007).
25. Kurdish nationalists were represented by a party under a different name, DEHAP, in the general elections of November 2002. The DTP has recently been closed down by a decision of the Constitutional Court in December 2009 for failing to dissociate themselves from the PKK. More recently, 'The Peace and Democracy Party' (BDP) has emerged in place of the DTP.
26. For an informative analysis, see Akin Ünver, H. (2009) Turkey's 'Deep-state' and the Ergenekon conundrum, The Middle East Institute Policy Brief, No. 23 (Washington DC.: The Middle East Institute).
27. On the nature of the CHP in recent years, see Ciddi, S. (2008) The Republican People's Party and the 2007 general elections: politics of perpetual decline? Turkish Studies, 9(3), pp. 437-456.
28. See Sazak, D. (2009) AB, Sol, CHP (The EU, the Left, and the CHP) for a good analysis of how the CHP has deviated in terms of its limited understanding of democratization and human rights from its major counterparts in western Europe in recent years (Milliyet, June 12).
29. For a detailed documentation on rising conservatism in Turkey in recent years, see Çarkoǧlu, A. & Kalaycioǧlu, E. (2009) The Rising Tide of Conservatism in Turkey (New York: Palgrave and Macmillan). The recent election of Kemal Ki{dotless}li{dotless}çdaroǧlu as the new leader of the CHP in place of Deniz Baykal may lead to a shift in the party's position on a renewed emphasis on the benefits of EU membership. It appears highly unlikely that the party will shift away from its defensive nationalist and hard-line secularist posture, at least in the immediate future. See, in this context, Turan, I. (2010) Party changes leader. Can leader change party?. German Marshall Fund of the United States Policy Brief available online at http://www.gmfus.org/cs/publications_archiv (accessed June 14, 2010).
30. Zielonka, J. (2006) Europe as Empire. The Nature of the Enlarged European Union (New York: Oxford University Press).
31. For an overview of the impact of the global financial crisis on the Turkish economy, see Öniş Z. & Guven, A.B. (2010) Global crisis, national responses: the political economy of Turkish exceptionalism, Koç University-TÜSİAD Economic Forum Working Paper, No: 10-13. In spite the negative effects of the global crisis on the real economy, Turkish policy-makers were quite optimistic about the state of the Turkish economy in the post-2009 era. Their optimism was based on the fact that Turkey has managed to avoid bank failures and was not in a state in a state of balance of payments crisis as was the case in the earlier crisis episodes. Moreover, Turkey's ability to delay and ultimately avoid the signing of an IMF standby agreement was interpreted as a sign of the growing strength and independence of the Turkish economy.
32. A recent analysis by Ian Lesser points in this direction. Lesser suggests that the neighbouring countries, finding themselves in an environment of significant economic stress, will also be much less receptive to the kind of soft-power approach advocated by Turkey in recent years. See Lesser, I.O. (2008) Turkey and the global economic crisis, German Marshall Fund of the United States Policy Brief on Turkey, available online at: http://www.gmfus.org/publications/article.cfm?id=504 (accessed June 15, 2010).
33. For an analysis of Turkey's multi-dimensional foreign policy of recent years with a strong Middle Eastern orientation, see Kardaş, Ş. (2010) Turkey: rebuilding the Middle East map or building sandcastles?, Middle East Policy, 27(1), pp. 115-136.