EU Conditionality in Turkey: When Does it Work? When Does it Fail? seeks to address several interconnected questions on the terms, circumstances, and factors that make the dynamics of conditionality work or fail in the case of the European Union-Turkey relationship. Analyzing the areas of disputes and of agreements, the contributions of this edited volume are focused on exploring the strengths and weaknesses of what the conditionality offers or stipulates, and what Turkey, as a candidate state, is capable or incapable of performing in response. Through a detailed analysis of each separate case underlined by the parties involved in the process of Turkey’s accession to the EU, the editors and the contributors of this collection expertly infer how, when, and under what conditions the concept of conditionality works or fails.

The accession of Turkey to the EU presents a fascinating case study for all those with an interest in europeanisation. Officially recognised as a candidate for full membership in 1999 Turkey's negotiations with the EU have been protracted and highly controversial. Turkey and the European Union: Processes of Europeanisation offers a coherent and focussed account of Turkey's recent relations and accession negotiations with the EU. Europeanisation as an explanatory tool is used to review how the EU has successfully induced change in Turkish policies and institutions whilst careful analysis is also conducted into where europeanisation has failed and explores how it may even have inadvertently contributed to forming a backlash against accession. Authoritative local and International contributors provide in-depth analysis as to why the process has had such a varied impact across a range of policies and institutions and ask, given the high costs of joining the EU and decreasing incentives, if europeanisation can still exert an influence in the future. Despite Turkey's unique geographical and political position between East and West the relationship with the EU is not a case sui generis. This book offers valuable insights on the effectiveness of europeanisation for all those within and without the framework of the European Union.

In recent years, Turkey has become an ever more important actor on the international stage. However, Turkey-EU relations still remain in a state of flux. The EU and Turkey seem to have moved apart in their political aspirations after Turkey’s EU accession talks faced a stalemate over the Republic of Cyprus’ EU accession as a divided island. Likewise, both Turkey and the EU have recently faced new socio-political realities, such as the Eurozone crisis, the Arab Spring and the Turkish government’s shifting foreign policy towards the Middle East region. Such developments have rendered EU membership potentially a less desirable prospect for an increasingly self-confident Turkey. In light of these recent events, this book explores the evolving challenges and opportunities facing the more than 50-year old Turkey-EU relationship. This volume focuses particularly on the role of the Cyprus issue, the potential for closer Turkey-EU cooperation in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the impact on Turkish citizens and politics, as well as the concept of Europeanization, especially in relation to Turkey’s democratic reform process. In drawing together perspectives from the disciplines of international relations, political science and law, this book offers a unique, interdisciplinary outlook towards the changing role of Europe in Turkey’s political discourse. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of Turkey-EU relations, EU external relations Law, Europeanization and Turkish and Middle Eastern politics.

Although Turkey has a long-held aspiration for European Union membership and has been a candidate for more than a decade, relations between the EU and Turkey have not received the attention it deserves from non-Turkish researchers thus far, and consequently the international literature on EU-Turkey relations is rather limited. In light of recent global economic and political challenges for the EU and Turkey, a need has emerged for an interdisciplinary approach to study EU-Turkey relations within the wider international political and economic context. Turkey's Accession to the European Union: Political and Economic Challenges, edited by Belgin Ak ay and Bahri Yilmaz, provides a timely overview of some of the most important issues and debates in the changing context of Europe, the change in domestic politics and foreign policy in Turkey, and the likely implications of these changes and developments for EU-Turkey relations. Within this framework, this collection includes articles emphasizing Turkey's reform process with a view to EU accession, despite EU's reservations about "absorbing" Turkey and the eventual decoupling of the Turkish reform process from European integration, as well as searching for alternative forms of cooperation or transitional arrangements which may be possible for Turkey at the time of accession.

Relations between Turkey and the European Union have a very long history. Officially, they began with the Ankara Agreement. Following the signature of this Agreement, the relationship has undergone many developments. Some authors compare this relation to a turbulent marriage; though it has its share of problems, it remains an ongoing one, and both parties have managed to stay together. The book is designed to include discussion of consumer protection law, competition law, the dispute settlement procedures, the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality with regard to Turkish workers in the European Union and Union workers in Turkey, as well as an overview of Turkey-EU relations that consists of legal, political and economic assessments on Turkish accession to the European Union. This book aims to draw a framework regarding the Turkish Law and enable the readers to learn about Turkish Law. Though it could easily be stated that though there are certain points to be completed, most aspects of Turkish Law are in harmony with EU Law. Turkey has taken many important steps in the past 50 year history with the EU, and especially from the legal perspective, has fulfilled most of the important goals. Thus, readers will also have a vision of this development, and of Turkish Law as a whole, after reading this book.

This book presents an in-depth analysis of the role played by the EU accession process in Turkey’s democratic evolution and in the empowerment of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the early 2000s. Often moving against the grain of consolidated analytical positions, the author finds that the accession process can have a critical impact on the political evolution and institutional setting of an aspiring member state that goes well beyond the simple Europeanization process (or EU accession conditionality). In the case of Turkey, that process created the essential conditions and environment for the country’s political modernization by helping the emergence of a “periphery” (including Kurds, “conservative” Muslims and non-Muslims) that secularism had pushed into a marginal, secondary status in Turkish society. Turkey’s gradual evolution in an authoritarian direction, following the stalling of the EU accession process, offers further proof of the decisive role that the EU accession can play in a country’s democratic advancement. The book additionally indicates how Turkey’s EU-driven democratic evolution for a number of years had important implications in terms of regional and global order.

European views on Turkey’s membership in the EU have been split between those in support of its full integration and those advocating a privileged partnership. To the extent that many of the latter proposals imply that Turkey will be partially integrated within Europe in certain areas, the question of Turkey’s accession is probably not about ‘if’, but about ‘how much’ integration there will be within the Union’s structures. The purpose of this book is not to offer a definitive response to this question. The book aims instead to examine the complexity of the issues pertaining to Turkey’s prospective EU membership by presenting several, often divergent, accounts of the political, security and socio-economic dimensions of the entire process. The book provides a forum for an exchange of views among distinguished scholars and researchers from different national backgrounds in order to contribute to the ongoing public discussion of Turkey’s accession. Sophisticated, informative and refreshing in its argumentation, the book provides an excellent overview of the complexities of Turkey’s accession to the EU membership. Professor Mustafa Aydin, TOBB University of Economics and Technology A refreshing view from the European periphery, an original mirror of the Union's central challenges. Professor Georges Prevelakis, University of Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne

Enlargement to Turkey is arguably the greatest challenge facing the European Union today. After the narrowly averted "train crash" over Cyprus in 2006, the second election victory of the Justice and Development Party in July 2007 opened new prospects for Turkish-EU relations. But in an EU emphasising a collective identity based on shared civilisational values, Turkey’s European credentials have been increasingly called into question. Amending national identity through political change has become the key to the success or failure of the Turkish integration project. This volume examines the EU role in strengthening the domestic pro-reform coalition within Turkey, the paradox - and potential limits - of Turkey’s europeanising Islamists, and the impact of Europeanisation through conditionality, including a case study of Turkish policy towards the Cyprus Question. Also addressed are the Western stereotypes of Turkish identity influencing the country’s EU prospects, notably concerning the role of Islam in precipitating acts of political violence and its association with sexual and political violence in the discourse of European opponents of Turkish accession. Finally, the dynamics of EU accession negotiations are analysed and the potential role of a norm-driven rhetorical strategy in promoting Turkish accession as a moral and democratic imperative is discussed.

Rational institutionalism’s theoretical explanations for external Europeanisation focus on material incentives such as accession conditionality in determining change in non-EU states. However, such exogenous explanations struggle to interpret ongoing Europeanisation where accession incentives have declined or even reversed (‘stalled’ accession), but institutional adjustment still continues. This Europeanization phenomenon is evident in Turkey, a state that had actively pursued EU membership between 1999 and 2004, resulting in domestic institutional reform to align governance structures with the EU. Thereafter, Europeanisation has reversed in some policy sectors but nonetheless continued in others such as Turkish water policy, despite a declining accession process. Rational institutional arguments therefore appear to lose explanatory power for such events post-2005. An alternative theoretical proposition forwarded is that the EU accession process embedded a self-sustaining cycle of socialization through social learning around water policy norms amongst policy actors that has continued beyond this accession imperative.

The issue of minority rights is highly contested in both member and candidate states of the European Union. Compared with other policy areas, the Europeanization process in minority rights is much slower and more problematic. Turkey, though, differs from the majority of the member states by showing positive development, although admittedly it is still characterised by both accelerations and slowdowns. This book examines how minority protection, as a highly sensitive and controversial issue, is promoted or constrained in the EU’s neighbourhood, by focusing on the case of Turkey. It draws on current external Europeanization theories and suggests a rationalist model comprising both the role of the EU and also domestic factors. It integrates two models of external Europeanization provided by Schimmelfennig and Sedelmier (2005), i.e. the external incentives and lesson-drawing models, and the framework of the pull-and-push model of member state Europeanization by Börzel (2000), to derive a comprehensive model for external Europeanization. The book argues that the push by EU conditionality and the pull by domestic dissatisfaction are influential in promoting change. Without one or the other, domestic change remains incomplete, as it is either shallow or selective. Focusing on the Turkish case, the book enhances the theoretical understanding of external Europeanization by shifting focus away from EU conditionality to voluntarily driven change, and by providing a theoretical model that is applicable to other countries. It will therefore be a valuable resource for students and scholars studying minority rights and Turkish and European ethnic politics.