Pub Date : 2008-02-29DOI: 10.1080/14613190801895912
J. Seroka
The development of regional cooperation is in the best interests of all the western Balkan countries: it is a key factor for establishing political stability, security and economic prosperity.… In this context, regional cooperation is therefore a cornerstone of the EU's policy framework for the western Balkans—the stabilization and association process, which offers to the countries of the region the possibility of eventual EU membership. (Olli Rehn,1 European Commissioner for Enlargement) 1 European Commission, Regional Cooperation in the Western Balkans, European Commission, Brussels, 2005, p. 2. The [Southeast Europe] region must be given a perspective of re-joining the European mainstream—because the clearest lesson of the past 50 years is that integration breeds trust, stability and prosperity. (Lord Robertson,2 Secretary General NATO) 2 Southeast Europe Initiative—NATO Fact Sheet, < www.nato.int/docu/facts/2001/seei.htm> (10 November 2004).
{"title":"Issues with regional reintegration of the Western Balkans","authors":"J. Seroka","doi":"10.1080/14613190801895912","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14613190801895912","url":null,"abstract":"The development of regional cooperation is in the best interests of all the western Balkan countries: it is a key factor for establishing political stability, security and economic prosperity.… In this context, regional cooperation is therefore a cornerstone of the EU's policy framework for the western Balkans—the stabilization and association process, which offers to the countries of the region the possibility of eventual EU membership. (Olli Rehn,1 European Commissioner for Enlargement) 1 European Commission, Regional Cooperation in the Western Balkans, European Commission, Brussels, 2005, p. 2. The [Southeast Europe] region must be given a perspective of re-joining the European mainstream—because the clearest lesson of the past 50 years is that integration breeds trust, stability and prosperity. (Lord Robertson,2 Secretary General NATO) 2 Southeast Europe Initiative—NATO Fact Sheet, < www.nato.int/docu/facts/2001/seei.htm> (10 November 2004).","PeriodicalId":313717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115805177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2008-02-29DOI: 10.1080/14613190801895904
R. Panagiotou
When the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) applied for admission to the European Union in March 2004, it was the culmination of a long and difficult road since it had gained its independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in September 1991. Although FYROM was the only republic of former Yugoslavia which gained its independence peacefully and without bloodshed, in a little over a decade the viability of the new state had been challenged more than once due to political, ethnic and economic reasons. Yet, despite tremendous difficulties and against all odds, FYROM not only surmounted these obstacles but as of December 2005 is officially an EU candidate country. This can be considered a tremendous achievement for a country which many feared would be the next domino in the cycle of violence which followed the break-up of Yugoslavia. This paper will analyse FYROM’s transition and economic development since independence, as well as the country’s relations with the European Union and the prospects for EU membership. The stimulus for this paper is based on three premises. First, the process of FYROM’s political and economic transition is unprecedented in range and scope. Specifically, FYROM’s transition has been threefold: from a centrally planned to a market economy, from a regional to a national economy, and from a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to an independent state and an EU candidate country. This fact makes FYROM’s experience particularly interesting as a case study of a transition economy, and one which can provide valuable lessons. Other examples of countries who successfully undertook a threefold transition differ in that these countries were economically among the strongest of their respective federations. Thus, they not only had strong economic motivations which led them to seek independence, they also were able to launch their transitions from a more solid starting point in terms of economic development, infrastructure, etc. FYROM was one of the poorest regions of the former Yugoslavia, and was particularly dependent on the transfer of federal funds; thus, unlike the countries referred to above, FYROM actually stood to lose from the breakdown of the federation. Second, FYROM’s transition and economic development since independence has not been extensively documented and there is an evident lack of literature on this subject. As a small state, which had been considered unviable due to the particularly unfavourable conditions under which it had gained independence,
{"title":"FYROM's transition: on the road to Europe?","authors":"R. Panagiotou","doi":"10.1080/14613190801895904","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14613190801895904","url":null,"abstract":"When the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) applied for admission to the European Union in March 2004, it was the culmination of a long and difficult road since it had gained its independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in September 1991. Although FYROM was the only republic of former Yugoslavia which gained its independence peacefully and without bloodshed, in a little over a decade the viability of the new state had been challenged more than once due to political, ethnic and economic reasons. Yet, despite tremendous difficulties and against all odds, FYROM not only surmounted these obstacles but as of December 2005 is officially an EU candidate country. This can be considered a tremendous achievement for a country which many feared would be the next domino in the cycle of violence which followed the break-up of Yugoslavia. This paper will analyse FYROM’s transition and economic development since independence, as well as the country’s relations with the European Union and the prospects for EU membership. The stimulus for this paper is based on three premises. First, the process of FYROM’s political and economic transition is unprecedented in range and scope. Specifically, FYROM’s transition has been threefold: from a centrally planned to a market economy, from a regional to a national economy, and from a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to an independent state and an EU candidate country. This fact makes FYROM’s experience particularly interesting as a case study of a transition economy, and one which can provide valuable lessons. Other examples of countries who successfully undertook a threefold transition differ in that these countries were economically among the strongest of their respective federations. Thus, they not only had strong economic motivations which led them to seek independence, they also were able to launch their transitions from a more solid starting point in terms of economic development, infrastructure, etc. FYROM was one of the poorest regions of the former Yugoslavia, and was particularly dependent on the transfer of federal funds; thus, unlike the countries referred to above, FYROM actually stood to lose from the breakdown of the federation. Second, FYROM’s transition and economic development since independence has not been extensively documented and there is an evident lack of literature on this subject. As a small state, which had been considered unviable due to the particularly unfavourable conditions under which it had gained independence,","PeriodicalId":313717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116057353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2008-02-29DOI: 10.1080/14613190801895888
H. Fidan, Rahman Nurdun
Although the world has never been wealthier than its current state, there are more than a billion people, one in five of the world’s population, still living in extreme poverty. As the world has become ‘a global village’ in the last century, the problems of nations are not only their own problems but the problems of the international community. International crime, wars and conflicts, trade in illegal drugs, the spread of diseases like AIDS and thousands of refugees from troubled zones in and around developed and relatively better-off states, attest to that. To tackle development problems globally, the United Nations developed its own institutions like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Trade Centre (ITC), etc. in the 1960s. However, these institutions have never been adequate to respond to the needs of underdeveloped and developing nations. As a result of this, national development cooperation agencies were established to help alleviate the burden of the UN institutions. As well as highly developed nations’ agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Department for International Development (DFID), etc., there emerged new donor countries to this equation in the recent decades as their economic situation began to allow them to help the outside world as well. Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) is one example of this recent trend. The emergence of new players in the donor community such as Turkey, India, Korea, Mexico, Russia and China has brought new impetus and opportunities to the global development community. Development assistance is also undergoing a serious transformation in the wake of 9/11; security and conflict resolution issues have become the main issues to be addressed by the top donors like the USA and Japan, although poverty reduction still occupies the central stage. Aid effectiveness, aid coordination and tied aid are becoming more and more focal points of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of OECD. In this context, Turkey represents a special case in the sense that on the one hand it is a recipient country, whereas on the other, it is also a donor country. This paper attempts to analyse accomplishments as well as shortfalls of Turkey’s Official Development Assistance (ODA). It starts with an overview of changing trends of development assistance and its future challenges, and then
{"title":"Turkey's role in the global development assistance community: the case of TIKA (Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency)","authors":"H. Fidan, Rahman Nurdun","doi":"10.1080/14613190801895888","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14613190801895888","url":null,"abstract":"Although the world has never been wealthier than its current state, there are more than a billion people, one in five of the world’s population, still living in extreme poverty. As the world has become ‘a global village’ in the last century, the problems of nations are not only their own problems but the problems of the international community. International crime, wars and conflicts, trade in illegal drugs, the spread of diseases like AIDS and thousands of refugees from troubled zones in and around developed and relatively better-off states, attest to that. To tackle development problems globally, the United Nations developed its own institutions like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Trade Centre (ITC), etc. in the 1960s. However, these institutions have never been adequate to respond to the needs of underdeveloped and developing nations. As a result of this, national development cooperation agencies were established to help alleviate the burden of the UN institutions. As well as highly developed nations’ agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Department for International Development (DFID), etc., there emerged new donor countries to this equation in the recent decades as their economic situation began to allow them to help the outside world as well. Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) is one example of this recent trend. The emergence of new players in the donor community such as Turkey, India, Korea, Mexico, Russia and China has brought new impetus and opportunities to the global development community. Development assistance is also undergoing a serious transformation in the wake of 9/11; security and conflict resolution issues have become the main issues to be addressed by the top donors like the USA and Japan, although poverty reduction still occupies the central stage. Aid effectiveness, aid coordination and tied aid are becoming more and more focal points of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of OECD. In this context, Turkey represents a special case in the sense that on the one hand it is a recipient country, whereas on the other, it is also a donor country. This paper attempts to analyse accomplishments as well as shortfalls of Turkey’s Official Development Assistance (ODA). It starts with an overview of changing trends of development assistance and its future challenges, and then","PeriodicalId":313717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130790800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2007-12-01DOI: 10.1080/14613190701689944
Mustafa Aydın, Sinem Akgul Acikmese
Since October 2001, Turkey has embarked upon a process of wide-ranging political reforms through harmonization packages to redress its shortcomings visa-vis the Copenhagen criteria. The Turkish economy has already undergone substantive changes to become a fully functioning market economy and acquire the capacity to cope with competitive pressures. Alongside political and economic changes, Turkish foreign policy (TFP) is also experiencing a transformation as a result of European conditionality. Since the EU’s acceptance of the Turkish candidacy in 1999, TFP has been profoundly altered. For instance, without the prospects of EU accession, it would have been difficult to imagine Turkey opening the doors to internal debate on the ‘Armenian issue’ or the shift in the dialogue on Cyprus from a confrontational line to a ‘win–win’ discourse. Similarly, there was a distinct contrast between Turkey’s attitudes towards Syria in 1998 and Greece in 1999 in response to their support for Abdullah Ocalan. While Syria faced troop mobilization on its border and threats of war should it not expel the leader of the separatist Kurdish group PKK from Damascus, the latter only received a diplomatic reprimand— and not a very strong or sustained one—when it was revealed that Ocalan had been sheltered in the Greek Embassy in Nairobi. What followed in both cases was a ‘spring’ in relations, the former achieved by coercive methods and the latter by a gentle push towards embarrassment. This paper examines TFP in the framework of Europeanization, to find out to what extent this approach is helpful in understanding change in the course of the last decade. First, it offers a brief discussion of the concept of Europeanization as understood in European integration studies, focusing on its domestic dimension. Second, it analyzes modes of change in the foreign policy domain of EU member and candidate countries, showing that foreign policy Europeanization of wouldbe members takes place through the conditionality provided in the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) acquis. Third, it introduces mechanisms of EU conditionality for foreign policy change in Turkey with specific references to institutional issues, traditionally sensitive foreign policy problems and the neighbouring region of the Middle East. The paper argues that while Europeanization is the major framework for understanding the recent changes
{"title":"Europeanization through EU conditionality: understanding the new era in Turkish foreign policy","authors":"Mustafa Aydın, Sinem Akgul Acikmese","doi":"10.1080/14613190701689944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14613190701689944","url":null,"abstract":"Since October 2001, Turkey has embarked upon a process of wide-ranging political reforms through harmonization packages to redress its shortcomings visa-vis the Copenhagen criteria. The Turkish economy has already undergone substantive changes to become a fully functioning market economy and acquire the capacity to cope with competitive pressures. Alongside political and economic changes, Turkish foreign policy (TFP) is also experiencing a transformation as a result of European conditionality. Since the EU’s acceptance of the Turkish candidacy in 1999, TFP has been profoundly altered. For instance, without the prospects of EU accession, it would have been difficult to imagine Turkey opening the doors to internal debate on the ‘Armenian issue’ or the shift in the dialogue on Cyprus from a confrontational line to a ‘win–win’ discourse. Similarly, there was a distinct contrast between Turkey’s attitudes towards Syria in 1998 and Greece in 1999 in response to their support for Abdullah Ocalan. While Syria faced troop mobilization on its border and threats of war should it not expel the leader of the separatist Kurdish group PKK from Damascus, the latter only received a diplomatic reprimand— and not a very strong or sustained one—when it was revealed that Ocalan had been sheltered in the Greek Embassy in Nairobi. What followed in both cases was a ‘spring’ in relations, the former achieved by coercive methods and the latter by a gentle push towards embarrassment. This paper examines TFP in the framework of Europeanization, to find out to what extent this approach is helpful in understanding change in the course of the last decade. First, it offers a brief discussion of the concept of Europeanization as understood in European integration studies, focusing on its domestic dimension. Second, it analyzes modes of change in the foreign policy domain of EU member and candidate countries, showing that foreign policy Europeanization of wouldbe members takes place through the conditionality provided in the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) acquis. Third, it introduces mechanisms of EU conditionality for foreign policy change in Turkey with specific references to institutional issues, traditionally sensitive foreign policy problems and the neighbouring region of the Middle East. The paper argues that while Europeanization is the major framework for understanding the recent changes","PeriodicalId":313717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133449923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2007-12-01DOI: 10.1080/14613190701728320
Aleksa Djilas
Sabrina P. Ramet, a professor of political science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, has written a book which is most impressive in its scope. Thinking About Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates About the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo is a discussion of more than 130 books, mostly in English but also in the languages of former Yugoslavia and a few inGermanand Italian, all listed at the beginning. It is divided into 13 chapterswith titles that aremeant to attract the attention not only of scholars but of all interested in former Yugoslavia, such as ‘Who’s to Blame, and for What? Rival Accounts of the War’ or ‘Milošević’s Place in History’ or ‘Debates about Intervention’. Thequestion that instantlyand inevitably springs tomind is, of course,whether Sabrina Ramet has really read all these books or is Thinking About Yugoslavia just a spectacular example of that dark academic craft of reviewing a book after only leafing through it or reading other reviews? (Perhaps in the not too distant future wemayhaveaNewYorkorLondonReview of Reviews of Books?)Whetheror not one believes that Ramet has read 40,000 pages or 16 million words (my rough calculations), her knowledge is considerable. Yet hers is not a book that can be recommended. Its bane is not to be found in ignorance but, alas, in the author’s profound bias, which causes her to evade difficulties and conceal complexities. Professor Michael Mann, America’s leading historical sociologist, published in 2005 The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, which soon won
位于特隆赫姆的挪威科技大学政治学教授萨布丽娜·p·拉梅特(Sabrina P. Ramet)写了一本令人印象深刻的书。《思考南斯拉夫:关于南斯拉夫解体和波斯尼亚和科索沃战争的学术辩论》是对130多本书的讨论，大部分是英语，也有前南斯拉夫的语言和一些德语和意大利语，都在开头列出。全书分为13章，这些章节的标题不仅是为了吸引学者们的注意，也是为了吸引所有对前南斯拉夫感兴趣的人的注意，比如“谁该受到谴责，为什么?”“战争的对立叙述”或“Milošević在历史上的地位”或“关于干涉的辩论”。当然，一个立刻不可避免地浮现在脑海中的问题是，萨布丽娜·拉梅特是否真的读过所有这些书，或者《思考南斯拉夫》只是一种黑暗的学术技巧的一个壮观的例子，这种技巧只是在翻阅或阅读其他评论后才评论一本书?(也许在不久的将来，我们会有一份《纽约-伦敦书评》的书评?)不管有没有人相信Ramet读过4万页或1600万字(我的粗略计算)，她的知识是相当可观的。然而她的书并不是一本值得推荐的书。它的祸根不在于无知，而在于作者的深刻偏见，这种偏见使她逃避困难，隐藏复杂性。美国著名历史社会学家迈克尔·曼恩教授于2005年出版了《民主的阴暗面:解释种族清洗》一书，该书很快获得了成功
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Pub Date : 2007-12-01DOI: 10.1080/14613190701718339
Kostas Ifantis
On 3 October 2005, Turkey’s bid to join the European Union turned a corner with the opening of accession negotiations. The terms of accession and Turkey’s long-term prospects for EU membership, however, remain rather unclear. The need to better understand the factors that will shape the course of EU–Turkey relations is critical. Turkey’s accession talks have already put Ankara’s bid, as well as the EU’s role and identity, into a new perspective. To become a member, Turkey must meet all the criteria and requirements laid out in the Negotiating Framework adopted in September 2005. On the political level, Turkey must create stable institutions that guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities. It should also unequivocally commit itself to good neighbourly relations and to the peaceful solution of border disputes according to the UN Charter and international law. Economically, the EU expects Turkey to create a functioning market economy and to adopt the acquis communautaire. All these will require Turkey to reform itself drastically to adopt, implement and enforce the European principles and values. However, the accession talks are taking place against a backdrop of a very sceptical EU public opinion as well as an elite majority that is less tolerant towards Turkey’s European prospects. Old prejudices against Turkey, mainly based on religion and history, are still very present and they are reinforced by more pragmatic concerns, related to the basic arithmetics of the EU functioning: number of votes in the Council, European Parliament seats, funding and subsidies, etc. And it is true that the thorniest issue in the whole process is the EU’s capacity to absorb Turkey. Financially, Turkey’s integration can only happen after an overhaul of the EU’s budget and redistribution mechanisms. The institutional changes required must be fundamental. All the above is the reason why Turkey negotiates its European future under the most stringent terms any candidate ever had to endure in the history of European integration and that is why to have any chance for success, Turkey will have to win the hearts and minds of EU citizens, and this must be done by a country at a time of peril.
{"title":"Turkey in transition—opportunities amidst peril?","authors":"Kostas Ifantis","doi":"10.1080/14613190701718339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14613190701718339","url":null,"abstract":"On 3 October 2005, Turkey’s bid to join the European Union turned a corner with the opening of accession negotiations. The terms of accession and Turkey’s long-term prospects for EU membership, however, remain rather unclear. The need to better understand the factors that will shape the course of EU–Turkey relations is critical. Turkey’s accession talks have already put Ankara’s bid, as well as the EU’s role and identity, into a new perspective. To become a member, Turkey must meet all the criteria and requirements laid out in the Negotiating Framework adopted in September 2005. On the political level, Turkey must create stable institutions that guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities. It should also unequivocally commit itself to good neighbourly relations and to the peaceful solution of border disputes according to the UN Charter and international law. Economically, the EU expects Turkey to create a functioning market economy and to adopt the acquis communautaire. All these will require Turkey to reform itself drastically to adopt, implement and enforce the European principles and values. However, the accession talks are taking place against a backdrop of a very sceptical EU public opinion as well as an elite majority that is less tolerant towards Turkey’s European prospects. Old prejudices against Turkey, mainly based on religion and history, are still very present and they are reinforced by more pragmatic concerns, related to the basic arithmetics of the EU functioning: number of votes in the Council, European Parliament seats, funding and subsidies, etc. And it is true that the thorniest issue in the whole process is the EU’s capacity to absorb Turkey. Financially, Turkey’s integration can only happen after an overhaul of the EU’s budget and redistribution mechanisms. The institutional changes required must be fundamental. All the above is the reason why Turkey negotiates its European future under the most stringent terms any candidate ever had to endure in the history of European integration and that is why to have any chance for success, Turkey will have to win the hearts and minds of EU citizens, and this must be done by a country at a time of peril.","PeriodicalId":313717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133165486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2007-12-01DOI: 10.1080/14613190701689878
S. Verney
Turkey’s long march to European Union began almost 50 years ago. In July 1959, Turkey became only the second non-founder member of the then EEC to ask to participate in the European integration process, submitting its application for an Association just weeks after Greece. The Ankara Agreement, signed in 1963, inaugurated economic integration between Turkey and the EEC while leaving Turkey outside the political decision-making process. From the start, the Turkish relationship with the EEC was framed in a prospect of eventual full membership. Thus, according to Article 28 of the Association:
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Pub Date : 2007-12-01DOI: 10.1080/14613190701689886
L. Narbone, Nathalie. Tocci
Since the establishment of the republic, Turkey’s development has evolved in ebbs and flows. Periods of growth, modernization and political liberalization have alternated with years of political instability, violence and economic crisis. Since the late 1990s, these cyclical trends have run parallel to Turkey’s relationship with the European Union (EU). Turkey’s ties with the Union have been far from linear. While generally moving towards greater levels of integration, relations have been often marred by moments of tension and crisis. The argument developed below is that as Turkey’s integration with the EU has proceeded, the ups and downs in EU–Turkey relations have increasingly interacted with Turkey’s domestic transformation, at times promoting change while at other times hindering modernization and democratization. This paper delves into this interaction, exploring how and why the EU dimension has affected the acceleration, deceleration or retreat of Turkey’s reform process. The principal claim made here is that EU relations have acted as a key external factor in Turkey’s internal development. This does not mean that the Union has been the principal explanatory variable of Turkey’s domestic transformation. Wider international changes and internal factors carry much more weight in determining domestic trends in Turkey. EU relations, however, have been and will continue to represent a fundamental explanatory variable, precisely because of the ways in which they impinge upon domestic factors within Turkey itself. This paper first briefly outlines the chronology of Turkey’s turbulent path to Europe and the matching trends in its domestic environment, highlighting how EU relations have impacted upon the process of domestic transformation. It then delves into the endogenous drivers of Turkey’s evolution, indicating the principal channels through which these domestic determinants have interacted with the wider setting of EU–Turkey ties.
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Pub Date : 2007-12-01DOI: 10.1080/14613190701689902
Ziya Öniş
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 Agreement exerting a significant impact in terms of initiating important economic and political reforms. Yet arguably the real breakthrough occurred and the momentum of ‘Europeanization’ gathered considerable pace, once the goal of full EU membership became a concrete possibility with the recognition in 1999 of Turkey’s candidate status. Political parties have emerged as agents of Europeanization, while themselves being transformed in the Europeanization process. The objective of the present paper is to highlight the role of political parties in Turkey’s recent Europeanization process and to underline some of the peculiarities of the Turkish party system and of some of the key parties as agents of economic and political transformation. From a comparative perspective, the following aspects of Turkey’s Europeanization appear rather striking and paradoxical. Civil society actors have been much more active and vocal in their push for EU membership and the associated reform process than the major political parties. Within civil society, business actors and notably big business have emerged as central. Turning to the parties, the ‘Islamists’ have been transformed much more than their ‘secularist’ counterparts. A political party with explicit Islamist roots, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), established itself as a vigorous supporter of EUrelated reforms following its November 2002 election victory. Yet another paradox is that many of the established parties on both the left and right of the political spectrum can be characterized as ‘defensive nationalists’, in the sense that they are broadly supportive of EU membership in principle but tend to be uncomfortable with key elements of EU conditionality. If membership could be accomplished without reforms, many of these parties would welcome the opportunity. Finally a central paradox is that ‘social democracy’ remains, for historical and other reasons, the element least affected by the ongoing
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Pub Date : 2007-12-01DOI: 10.1080/14613190701689993
Hakan Yılmaz
Identifying a collectivity consists of producing a series of rational arguments, emotional judgments and aesthetic choices with the purpose of distinguishing that particular collectivity from the others. Each collective identification is, therefore, an exercise in boundary drawing, separating the insiders from the outsiders, ‘us’ from ‘them’ and ‘we’ from ‘the others’. Some recent studies on European identity have shown that Turkey is treated as an ‘other’ in the mental maps of many Europeans. Hence, according to an important cross-country qualitative study on European identity, carried out on behalf of the European Commission, the respondents have drawn a clear line between those countries that they believe form an ‘integral part’ of Europe and those that do not:
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