The Impact of EU-based Populism on Turkey-EU Relations

ABSTRACT

The May 2019 EP elections once again highlighted the current cultural backlash throughout Europe against progressive values such as cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism, which impacts on the ‘future of Europe’ debate, raising important questions for the evolution of Turkey-EU relations. Even though Turkey is no longer a hot topic in EU political parlance and public opinion, opposition to Turkish EU membership continues in the form of nativism, particularly with reference to the issues of immigration and Islam, as the cases of AfD in Germany and UKIP in Britain show.     

The evolution of the European economy: Implications for Trans‐Atlantic relations

The Russian attitude towards the European Neighbourhood Policy constitutes a serious obstacle to the realisation of the Union's agenda in its neighbourhood. The Russian challenge takes three main forms: 1) with Russia not a part of the EU's overall approach involving the principle of conditionality, the Union's legitimacy and international actorness in general is in danger of being undermined; 2) Russia is increasingly starting to put forward its own model of operation, thus hampering the realisation of the Union's goals in the neighbourhood; 3) Russia is engaging in business activities that are in effect undoing the ENP's energy component. There are no easy fixes to these problems. What the Union must do is believe in its own values and visions: it is only by example that it can promote its ideals outside its institutional boundaries.     

The Strength of Far-Right AfD in Eastern Germany: The East-West Divide and the Multiple Causes behind ‘Populism’

This article sheds light on one of the key developments in recent German politics and relates it to the broader debate on the electoral success of the far right. The rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative for Germany) is also a story about Germany’s internal political divide three decades after reunification, as the party has roughly twice as much support in the east than in the west. The article analyses the country’s east-west divide, strongly visible in widespread sentiments of societal marginalisation among eastern Germans. The key socio-structural differences between the east and the west relate to matters of economics, migration, and representation—and provide a setting suitable to AfD strength in the east. In explaining the party’s electoral success in eastern Germany, the article echoes recent scholarship which rejects narrow explanations for the strength of ‘populism’, and instead highlights its multiple causes.