De-Europeanisation of Civil Society and Public Debates in Turkey: The Kurdish Question Revisited

Abstract

This study discusses the dynamics of de-Europeanisation and the changing impact of Europe on the politically mobilised civil society involved in the public debates concerning Turkey’s Kurdish question. The article first critically assesses how and in what ways the legal and constitutional reforms on the freedom of assembly required by the European Union (EU) changed the political structure in which civil society organisations (CSOs) operate in Turkey. It then examines the views of CSOs on the potential roles and limitations of the EU in the Kurdish question and the peace process which lasted between March 2013 and July 2015. It also delineates the reasons why the political context of Europeanisation is not seen as instrumental by these CSOs to framing and justifying their arguments.     

De-Europeanisation in Turkey: The Case of the Rule of Law

Abstract

This article investigates the political dynamics shaping the post-2010 ‘de-Europeanisation’ of Turkey’s judicial system, particularly regarding judicial independence and rule of law. The analysis suggests the limits of conventional Europeanisation accounts emphasising causal factors such as European Union (EU) conditionality and the ‘lock-in effects’ of liberal reforms due to the benefits of EU accession. The article argues that the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP’s) bid for political hegemony resulted in the reversal of rule of law reforms. De-Europeanisation is discussed in terms of both legislative changes and the government’s observed discourse shift.     

Policy Transfer and Discursive De-Europeanisation: Higher Education from Bologna to Turkey

Abstract

This article analyses Turkey’s integration into the Bologna Process, concentrating on the questions of why and how Turkey is transferring norms in the area of higher education. As an example of policy transfer, the Bologna Process provides important insights into the question of why states choose to voluntarily adopt norms where there is no top-down pressure for change. Focusing on Turkey as a case study, the article identifies the narratives of the agents of change responsible for the reform process. The agents are the intermediaries in the Europeanisation process – they construct the discourses and they are the ones responsible for transmitting the process to the society at large. The article concludes that while institutional Europeanisation is taking place in the area of higher education, discursive Europeanisation is lacking.     

Europeanisation or De-Europeanisation? Media Freedom in Turkey (1999–2015)

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has successfully been exercising its transformative power through both its enlargement and its neighbourhood policies for decades. Nonetheless, transformation towards a more European model of governance through Europeanisation is not a linear process, but a differentiated one. Adverse consequences for Europeanisation (i.e. de-Europeanisation) have often been neglected. The case of media freedom in Turkey, with a deteriorating trend across time, exemplifies such an outcome. This article explores media freedom in Turkey in the last decade. It argues that media reforms have been reversed over time in a de-Europeanising trend, with the EU losing its position as a reference point for reforms.     

The European Union in Sudan: A Missed Opportunity?

Abstract

International organisations active in Africa are often criticised for their ineffectiveness. So too is the European Union (EU), which is also accused of failing to assume a more prominent conflict management role in war-torn countries. This article examines the EU’s capacity and readiness to take on such a role in one such country, the former Republic of Sudan, home to Africa’s longest-running civil wars and the first ‘genocide’ of the 21st century. It begins by outlining the EU’s record in Darfur and the North–South Peace Process. Drawing upon 25 interviews and Hill’s ‘capabilities–expectations model’, it then questions whether the EU’s ‘capabilities’ (resources, instruments, unity) were ‘fit for purpose’ in Sudan’s hostile target setting. It concludes by identifying settings that have been more propitious for a conflict-related management function and by suggesting that the EU should better manage expectations about future security roles.     

Protests Against Energy Projects in Turkey: Environmental Activism Above Politics?

The surge of environmental protest in Turkey has been interpreted as ‘above politics’ activism that strengthens civil society, fosters alternative expressions of identity, and creates new forms of agency outside the state. This article contends that any analysis of the way environmentalism unfolds in Turkey must take into account identity dynamics and the power the state has over these dynamics. Environmental activism seldom remains purely ‘issue-based’, despite the claims and desires of many activists themselves that their protests be ‘above politics’ as a ‘people’s movement’. Drawing on ethnographic and other methods in the study of environmental protest against a gas power plant on the Black Sea coast, this article shows how activists are caught in a dilemma which forces them to tread very carefully if they are to avoid accusations of being separatists or betrayers of the fatherland. Thus, environmental conflicts in Turkey can only be understood within the context of national identity- and party-politics.     

De-Europeanisation or Counter-Conduct? Turkey’s Democratisation and the EU

Abstract

Many Turkish and European scholars have been (re)producing texts that praise the normative impact of the European Union (EU) which has helped the political transformation of Turkey. Nevertheless, the recent deterioration of democracy in the country indicates that the EU has been losing its transformative influence on Turkey. This might be regarded as de-Europeanisation. However, this article argues that the conceptual framework of de-Europeanisation can only partially explain the current situation in Turkey and the EU’s impact, and that an analysis based on counter-conduct, as produced by EU governmentality, may provide insight into a subtler dynamic at work in the country.     

Redefining Democratic Discourse in Thailand’s Civil Society

ABSTRACT

Thailand’s civil society has contributed to the country’s democratic regression. Underlying this political position are redefined meanings of democracy. This article seeks to shed light on these intriguing positions and processes by exploring the democratic discourses that prevail in Thailand’s civil society and their implications. The article does this by using a case study of a network of development actors associated with a public and influential Community Organisation Development Institution (CODI) organisation. It is found that democratic discourses are associated with a preoccupation with the sense of collective identity, defined through civil society’s communitarian vision. This preoccupation influenced their political emphasis on promoting “collective virtues.” It is argued that these discourses limit the democratic potential of Thailand’s civil society in a number of ways. First, they facilitate the building of connections between civil society and conservative elites. Second, the discourses endow civil society with an organisational culture that puts emphasis on promoting the roles of “good people” who are mostly selected by those at the top of the civil society organisations that are hierarchical.     

Preferring Rome to Brussels: Mapping Interest Group Europeanisation in Italy

ABSTRACT

How much do Italian interest groups undertake their advocacy/lobbying activities at the EU level? How often have groups gained access to different EU level institutions? This paper presents an original conceptualisation for the concept of ‘interest group Europeanisation’, which takes into account both the percentage of EU lobbying and access to EU institutions, and assesses the role of national centrality (i.e. access to national institutional venues and self-perceived influence in national policy-making) in determining whether there is more or less interest group Europeanisation. Original data from a national survey conducted on around 500 Italian interest groups are provided. Groups that are at the core of the national interest system are less likely to undertake a large part of their lobbying activities at the EU level, but more likely to gain EU access.     

De-Europeanisation through Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of AKP’s Election Speeches

Abstract

This article takes issue with the question of whether Turkey has been turning away from Europe in recent years, by adopting a critical constructivist lens to understand how, rather than why, Turkey’s presumed distance from the European Union (EU) is taking place. In doing that, it seeks to analyse the ways in which the political–societal transformation of the country as distanced from the EU is enabled by certain discursive practices which in turn contribute to the growing rift between Turkey and the EU. This is mainly conducted through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of texts produced by former Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an on Europe and the EU during key election periods starting with the 12 June 2011 general election.     

Shifting Logics: The Discourses of Turkish Political Elites on EU Accession

Abstract

The article compares the EU accession discourses, during the 2002, 2007 and 2011 elections, of Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) with those of the two main opposition parties, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), tracking the continuities and shifts in their discourses. In the light of Habermas’s distinction between pragmatic, ethical and moral justifications, the discourses are analysed on the basis of three explanatory logics – interests, rights and identity – by means of a theoretically guided qualitative content analysis of the election manifestos of these three political parties. These logics, emerging and shifting in line with periodical dynamics, have been instrumental to varying degrees in the discourses of Turkey’s political elites.     

Organisierte Zivilgesellschaft im EU-Verfassungsprozess: Partner des Regierens oder Konstituent politischer Ordnung?

A new role has been ascribed to civil society within the EU-constitutional process. It is not only regarded as a partner in governance but also as a constituent of the emerging EU-polity. Civil society appears in this process primarily as the structure of voice that is articulated in relation to EU-governance and that claims to represent European citizens. The article proposes an analytical framework and a methodology of how to analyze civil society in its role as constituency. The research agenda is linked to the intermediary and the representative function of organised civil society as a transmission belt of legitimatory discourse on the EU. In order to reconstruct how potential interests, identities and normative ideas relating to the legitimacy of a EU constitutional order are contested within national politics, our research draws on a survey of German civil society organisations in three sectors: a) consumer interest organisations, b) churches and religious organisations, and c) women and gender equality groups.     

Mapping Civil Society in the Middle East: The Cases of Egypt,Lebanon and Turkey

This article comparatively assesses the meaning of civil society in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, by utilising the results of a study conducted among civil society actors. In recent decades, civil society has become integral to discussions of political liberalisation. At the same time, there is a growing rift between international democracy promotion through investment in civil society and the more critical literature on the relationship between the two. This article makes three contributions to these debates by comparing the actual experiences of civil society actors. First, it argues that the boundaries between states and civil societies are indeterminate, making it problematic to expect civil society organisations alone to become catalysts for regime transformation. Second, it shows that expectations of monolithic generation of civic values through civil society organisations do not reflect the actual experience of actors in this realm. Finally, it argues for taking into consideration other sources of mobilisation as potential contributors to meaningful political and social transformation.     

Why the EU Still Matters in Turkish Domestic Politics: Insights from Recent Reforms in Migration Policy

Abstract

In view of Turkey’s increasing distance from the European Union (EU), the continued partial alignment with EU standards is often attributed either to domestic factors, or to diffusion processes induced by external actors other than the EU. However, based on interviews with officials from Turkey and the European Commission on recent reforms in migration policy, this article argues that two factors are responsible for continued EU influence on policy processes. First, the EU is still able to set incentives for compliance. Second, the instrument for pre-accession assistance has an impact that goes beyond that of a mere facilitator of domestically defined interests.     

Political Mobilisation,the Poor and Democratisation in Neo-liberal India

Abstract

Globalisation has had far-reaching implications for the dynamics of liberal democracy and governance in India. With the opening of the Indian economy in the 1990s, global market forces and private sector organisations have played an increasingly significant role in the political life of the nation. Given this background, several central questions are addressed. How has globalisation affected the way that state and civil society relations in India are constituted? In particular, what are its political implications for the poor who had previously relied on the services provided by the post-colonial state that carried out significant welfare-orientated functions? The paper argues that the contradictions of globalisation have transformed the dependent identity of the poor and marginalised toward a greater propensity for collective mobilisation. While the longer-term outcomes of such mobilisation remains unclear, the hegemonic position of entrenched elites is more clearly being challenged by the emergence of new agendas of inclusion, welfare rights and social justice appearing under conditions of neo-liberal globalisation.     

Encounters with Europe in an Era of Domestic and International Turmoil: Is Turkey a De-Europeanising Candidate Country?

Abstract

This article provides a novel conceptual framework to understand the impact of the European Union on Turkish politics and policies in the aftermath of the opening of accession negotiations in 2005. It argues that the post-2005 developments in Turkey not only attest to lesser and more limited Europeanisation, but also entail a process that is increasingly gaining momentum in the country and which is referred to as ‘de-Europeanisation’.     

Now there is,now there is not: the disappearing silent revolution of AKP as re-entrenchment

ABSTRACT

Based on a continuous and relational understanding of state-formation, as conceptualized by Charles Tilly, and inspired by Gramsci’s formulation of ‘war of position’, AKP regime in Turkey can be identified as a process of (re)-entrenchment. The AKP’s original claim to de-securitize the state–society relationship in Turkey has re-entrenched, re-aligned and re-institutionalized positions of power and democratic participation within the state to overcome the old-guard and establish its own hegemonic rule. The conspicuous disappearance of a booklet from 2013, i.e. the Silent Revolution, that was supposed to be the historical documentation of the AKP’s ambitious original claims from all AKP-related media effectively indicates its abandonment of these goals. This document reveals the contentious (re)entrenchments while the party ascended to power challenging deep-rooted security-oriented positions of the statist nationalism. This ascent to power was indeed a ‘war of position’ during which international opportunities created by the EU were effectively navigated and legislation and executive actions a) pertaining rule of law, human rights and freedoms, administrative accountability and transparency, b) economic and social reforms regarding vulnerable social groups, anti-corruption measures and labour relations, c) de-securitization and civilianization of government agencies and d) issues of Kurdish citizens were utilized as ‘trenches.’     

From military tutelage to civilian control: an analysis of the evolution of Turkish civil–military relations

ABSTRACT

The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) have been the main discussion topic in the political arena over the last decade in Turkey, with a focus on curtailing military supervision over political life. This article investigates the evolution of civil–military relations (CMR) in Turkey. Thus, the aim of this study is to explore the factors and dynamics that have led to the development and realignment of CMR in Turkey. The focus will be on how military tutelage in Turkey has been ended, what factors have caused this and finally whether Turkish CMR have been normalized.     

Eurosceptic yet pro-enlargement: the paradoxes of Hungary’s EU policy

Abstract

The present article seeks to explore the main aspects of Hungary’s EU enlargement policy. It reveals a tension between the government’s committed support for EU enlargement and its critical stance towards the EU on several other fronts. However, on the basis of liberal intergovernmentalist theory, this article argues that this is not a real contradiction since enlargement to the Western Balkans serves Hungary’s national interests in spite of its government’s Euroscepticism. At the same time, Hungary’s questioning of the basic values of the EU as a community of liberal democracies has weakened the legitimacy of Hungarian interventions in favour of speeding up EU enlargement. While Hungary has become ever more isolated from the ‘old’ EU member states, more recently, its government managed to increase its leverage in the Western Balkans and central Europe in the context of the migration crisis.