Masarykova univerzita V brně Fakulta sociálních studií

4.7 Summary

The legislative framework was transformed significantly, especially in the first half of the examined period. In the second part, we can observe in correspondence to general posture of political elites in that time, a slight decrease in efforts to continue in approving the required EU-backed reforms.

We can observe significant changes as first in terms of institutional adaption, where a number of organs and positions was created. Also the structure of domestic opportunities and distribution of power were transformed, where more power was gained by civil society, nongovernmental organizations or European and international level instances. Concerning the changes in the framework of expectations we can see that the actors (or at least some of them) had to adjust their behavior to the newly established or transformed rules and procedures.

The amount of changes and the adaptation to them is also apparent when we consider this area as a part of the positive integration where the active policy from nation side is expected and the necessary laws and regulations have to be downloaded from the European level.

When we concern the general result of the process of Europeanization in human rights policy, we could claim that it is absorption, which means the adaptation of domestic structures and absorbing the changes. But we can not leave the remark that of course not all the actors or procedures are flexibly adopting to the required framework and in some cases we can observe rather indifferent approach, where conducting of some of the changes is being postponed.

Conclusion

The issue concerned in this thesis is the Turkish political system and the level of its Europeanization. The aim was to support or refute the hypothesis which is as follows: The process of Europeanization had influence on the Turkish political system in all three dimensions – polity, politics and policy.

In the first part of the work the theoretical background of various Europeanization theories and conceptualizations is introduced. The emphasis is put mainly to present the methodologies for the three spheres of political system – polity, politics and policy. Also the concepts of Europeanization in candidate countries as well as in the concrete case of Turkey are presented.

Following this theoretical setting, I proceeded to the particular areas to be examined. The procedure was first to introduce the actors and the changes that happened during the set period and afterwards focus on the eventual aspect of the process of Europeanization.

As first the sphere of polity with its main actors – government, parliament and National Security Council was observed. We concluded that the area was Europeanized, however, each element in a bit different way. Whereas the first period of government and parliament can be characterized by rather formal changes than attitudinal and in the next periods also the behavioral changes occurred, in the case of National Security Council we can state the changes are more formal during the whole examined period. Thus, the result of Europeanization in this sphere could be called as partially absorption, partially transformation.

The second part that I examined was the dimension of politics with its principal actors – political parties and characteristics of the framework and system in which they function. After analyzing the parties’ programmatics, organizational structure, relations with government and their links beyond the national system, we could claim that only the AK Party was significantly influenced by the EU issue and it constitutes the identitarian Europeanist party in the system. The other two parties, probably influenced by the fact of being in opposition in the examined periods present rather indifferent stances when they in some cases try to postpone conducting of the changes required. The characteristics of the party system were influenced more likely in an indirect way.

The last part which was studied was the sphere of policy. I chose the concrete case of human right policy. As it constitutes one of the political criteria for the EU membership, thus significant emphasis is being put by the EU on fulfilling the required changes, the transform process of this policy was considerable. The legal framework was changed significantly mainly in the first half of the examined period, where important constitutional changes were made and also harmonization packages were adopted. Also a new institutional framework has been created which implies also changes in the distribution of power and the actors’ behavior. In general we could state that transformation of this area presented case of absorption, with certain particular exceptions of indifference caused most probably by the external factors.

On the basis of these facts, when we summarize the findings on the selected elements of all three spheres, we can state that all of them were Europeanized in terms of reacting with the domestic transformation on the adaptational pressures inflicted by the EU. We have to emphasize that the level and character of Europeanization in each area is rather specific and even inside one sphere, the actors do not react in the same way. The feature that is present in certain way in all three dimensions is the supremacy of formal changes over the behavioral or attitudinal changes. In other words, we can observe the effort to fulfill the required legal and institutional changes but just in some cases they stem out of the actors’ beliefs.

If we use Radaelli’s approach for distinguishing the eventual result of the process of Europeanization in the context of the whole political system, the most fitting term would be absorption which means adaptation with the domestic structures absorbing the changes, but we can not omit mentioning that there exist certain areas which remained indifferent in the sense that the actors see the European models as too far from the domestic practice and want to postpone conducting of the changes required.

In conclusion, we can claim that the hypothesis of the work set in the introduction was supported by the findings, i.e. that the Turkish political system has been Europeanized in its all three spheres – polity, politics and policy. However, it is necessary to add that there exist significant differences between developments in particular areas which should be subjects to further examination.