Masarykova univerzita V brně Fakulta sociálních studií

Katedra mezinárodních vztahů a evropských studií

Diplomová práce

Vedoucí práce: doc. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D.

UČO: 52095

Obor: Mezinárodní vztahy a evropská studia

Brno, 2008

Prohlášení

Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci na téma „Europeanization of the Turkish political system“ vypracovala samostatně a pouze s využitím pramenů, které jsou uvedeny v přiloženém seznamu použité literatury a internetových zdrojů .

V Brně dne 8.12. 2008

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podpis studenta

Dovoluji si tímto poděkovat vedoucímu diplomové práce doc. PhDr. Vítu Hlouškovi, Ph.D. za odborné konzultace a cenné návrhy a připomínky, které mi pomohly k dokončení této práce. Poděkování patří také pracovníkům Economic Development Foundation v Istanbulu za jejich čas, ochotu a pomoc při hledání zdrojů potřebných k vytvoření této práce a za překlad některých základních materiálů, které nebyly v dispozici v angličtině.

Introduction

Therefore the attitudes and the term conceptualization offer an extensive range of assorted researches dealing generally with the domestic changes of institutions, processes and policies of particular countries in connection with the European integration.

In my thesis I will examine a concrete case of Europeanization of the Turkish political system. Turkey has had a close connection with European Communities/European Union since 1959 when an official application for membership was submitted. This initiative resulted in the signature of an Association Treaty (the Ankara Agreement) in 1963. Now, in 2008, Turkey qualifies as the longest standing associate partner of the EU. In 1999 Turkey was considered as a candidate country on the Helsinki Council Summit which prompts the question of possible effect of Europeanization on the domestic political system. I will try to find out in this work if the domestic structure of institutions, processes and policies has been influenced by the process of Europeanization.

Herein, deriving from the theoretical background, I have to assign several assumptions which create the basis for my research. Firstly, I suppose that the process of Europeanization affects all three spheres of the domestic political system. That means polity, politics and policies. Secondly, it is evident that all these three dimensions and their transformation are interrelated. Therefore they will be all concerned in the work with a goal to set the global image of changes in the political system as a whole. Third assumption is that not just the member states of the European Union (EU) but also the candidate countries can be influenced by the process of Europeanization. Thus, Turkey can serve as an example to be examined in this field.

On the grounds of these premises I will set the hypothesis of the work which states that the process of Europeanization had influence on the Turkish political system in all three dimensions – polity, politics and policy.

Another remark has to be mentioned before specifying the methodology of this work. As the set topic is considerably broad I will concern only the principal actors, procedures and processes in the political system, which will be concretized hereinafter. One reason for this procedure is the effort to cover all the interrelated aspects of the three dimensions and their elements, as second, the language limitation does not allow me to go much deeply in details in one particular area. The aim is to create a thesis that can offer a general notion of the Europeanization process in the case of Turkey.

The thesis is composed of four principal parts. In the first one, the theories of Europeanization are introduced and the theoretical background for research of particular dimensions is set there. Afterwards, the chapters examining the dimensions on the basis of the theoretical framework follow. For setting the period to be examined, the Helsinki Council Summit is considered as the initiatory point in most of the work.

As first, the dimension of polity will be examined. I will concentrate on the main actors in the area, which are the government, the parliament, the National Security Council and also the related public administration. The main task is to observe how the functioning of these actors and the institutional structure have been changed.

The second sphere to be examined is the politics. This part concerns the main political parties that are represented in parliament after 2002 and 2007 elections. They will be analyzed primarily from the view of programmatics, organizational changes, relations with the government and their links beyond the national system. Also the party system will be examined, mainly from the view of its characteristic features, elections and electorate postures.

The last chapter concerns Europeanization of policy on the concrete case of human rights policy. We will proceed through the legal and institutional changes made in the examined period and observe to what extent the institutions adopted to new regulations, the actors’ behavior or the distribution of power changed in relation to the EU.