Europeanization in Turkey

1.6 Europeanization in Turkey

The process of Westernization and modernization is observed by most authors since the end of Ottoman Empire and the emergence of Turkish republic. However, the long and close contacts with the West (and the self confidence deriving from the fact that earlier in their history they had the upper hand vis-à-vis their European neighbours) led the Turks consciously to adopt the European ways (Heper 1993: 8). Sofos (2001: 243) sees the link between EU and Ottoman Empire through the economy, which became linked to European markets as early as the sixteenth century and they eventually dominated Turkey in the nineteenth century. During this latter period the imperatives of economic and political reforms became pressing within the ailing Ottoman Empire and were linked with demands for modernization from different sections of the political and economic elites.

The Westernization efforts were facilitated by the fact that the influence of religion was greatly constrained in the Ottoman Empire.¹² Based on principles of „necessity and „reason“, and summed up by the norm of rationality, a particular outlook was formulated that provided ideals and values for the ruling strata. The bureaucratic elite assimilated these ideals and values through the roles which they filled, through organizational socialization (Heper 1993: 9).

With the creation of the republic, the primary aim was to reach the contemporary level of civilization by establishing its political, economic, and ideological prerequisites, such as the creation of an independent nation-state, the fostering of industrialization, and the construction of a secular and modern national identity.¹³ Despite the fact that Turkey as an independent nation-state emerged out of an independence war against Western imperialist powers, it nevertheless accepted the universal validity of Western modernity as the way of building modern Turkey¹⁴ (Keyman, Öniş 2007: 11-12; Derviş et al. 2004: 10). The Turkish elite have been the articulators of a political project of Westernization in a variety of social terrains, thus indelibly marked the path of modern Turkish history.¹⁵ ‘For nearly a century, „western-ness“ has served both as a frame of reference and also as an image of the future for generations of the Turkish elite, coupled and identified with progress and development. Westernization and development have thus been envisioned as two sides of the same coin, inseparable from one another and to be pursued with single-minded ardour. Westernization, with its multiple dimensions, has been the self-designated mission of the Turkish elite (Öncü 1993: 258).

While accepting the Western modernity, one of the main concerns of the Kemalist elite was still the security of new nation state. The question is how was the link between security, modernity and Westernization established in the process of making. For the Kemalist elite, the key to linking security and modernity in Westernization was the idea of “rapid modernization” through the foundation of a modern nation-state that would possess secularity and rationality, employ reason to initiate progress, and establish a modern industrial economy, thereby fostering the processes of industrialization¹⁶ (Keyman, Öniş 2007: 12).

Observation made by Sofos (2001) is dealing with the confusion of terms in an intriguing way. In view of the vision of modernity (and modernization) of the republican elite, it has become virtually commonplace to accept today that Atatürk „believed that Turkey’s future lay with Europe and the West“. Indeed, this assertion can be supported by the fact that Western modernity, by which Atatürk was largely influenced, was in effect coterminous at the time with European modernity and that therefore the process of modernization he set in motion equals Europeanization. However, such claims should be more closely scrutinized as they tend to conflate „modernization“ with „Europeanization“ or even „Westernization“ and to misread Turkey’s domestic transformation as well as its foreign policy and international alliances¹⁷ (Sofos 2001: 245).

There is another interesting point to be mentioned – the success in societal modernization of the early republican era went hand in hand with the failure in cultural modernization, as the process of modern-nation state building failed to construct a “social ethos” in societal relations. Beside this, the lack of reference to democracy should also be pointed out as one of the defining features of that period. More than to change the existing one-party system, the elite aimed, in the constant efforts to initiate the state-centric reforms for the top-down modernization of society as a whole, to overcome the problem of the “time lag” between Turkey and the West, and the key to do so was “modernization without democratization”. Even though the transformation to multi-party parliamentary democracy was achieved after the second World War, the hegemony of the state-centric mode of societal modernization remained unchallenged until the 1980s, especially 1990s¹⁸ (Keyman, Öniş 2007: 14-15).

The relationship between Turkey and the European Community in the period between becoming associate member in 1963 and the time when Turkey was formally recognized as a candidate for full-membership, 1999, should not be underestimated. Trade and investment links were forged between Turkey and the Community culminating with the signing of the Customs Union Agreement, which became effective at the end of 1995. Strong links developed in the economic realm had a counterpart in the political sphere. Also the ultimate interest of Turkish elites in full membership of the Community had a conditioning effect on Turkish democracy. At the same time it has to be emphasized that this kind of relationship was not sufficiently deep or powerful enough to make a dramatic impact on the Turkish economy or the Turkish democracy (Keyman, Öniş 2007: 60-61).

As Zürcher states (1995), although attempts to democratize Turkish political life and the country’s legal system since the late 1980s have met with some success, the continued role of the military was inherently linked with the ambiguous legal system.¹⁹ Zürcher denotes the role of the EC as an indirect force for democratization, when after the 1980 coup the EC prioritized the dimension of human and civil rights in determining the pace of the development of its relationship with Turkey. The EU and its policy vis-à-vis Turkey has become a permanent feature of the public discourse in Turkey and a factor contributing to the legitimation or otherwise of political views, policies and action within the country. It is characteristic that various governments and parts of the political and economic elites in Turkey have been linking the need for liberalization with the process of integration into Europe. Thus democratic reforms in the political system have been either prompted by or justified on the grounds of the EU-Turkey relationship (Zürcher 1995: 253).

Ugur (2001: 217) proceeding similar argument mentions another consequence of Turkey-EU relations – Turkey’s association with the EU has always been presented as a signal of the country’s European orientation and an anchor ensuring the irrevocability of the Europeanization process. Yet EU-Turkey relations have always been marked with tensions and frequent deviations from declared commitments. As a result, Turkey is currently the most economically integrated yet politically distanced candidate for membership.

Concerning the process of Europeanization a number of authors regard Helsinki Council Summit of 1999 as a turning point (Atan 2004: 108; Avcı 2004: 194; Keyman, Düzgit 2007: 69; Keyman, Öniş 2007: 39, 63; Lejour 2004: 130; Öniş 2003: 12; Öniş 2006: 282), other authors emphasize as an important impetus the year 2002 with parliamentary election in November and Copenhagen Council Summit in December (Terzi 2008: 13; Kalaycıoğlu 2005: 37; Oguzlu 2004: 109). Terzi argues that although Turkey was finally declared as a candidate country at Helsinki, the coalition government in Turkey between 1999 and 2002 lacked the cohesion and determination to see through political reforms needed to meet the EU’s Copenhagen criteria and moreover strengthened those who resisted political reforms on the grounds that Turkey’s strategic importance should mean an abandonment of political conditions for membership, which was of course not adhered to by the EU (Terzi 2008: 13). Öniş is also noticing the paradoxical fact that the coalition government in power during the 1999-2002 era was actually quite lukewarm in its approach towards the EU-related reform agenda.²⁰ But he adds that despite this fact, and ‘given the magnetism of the EU, the coalition government was not able to swim against the tide and, at the end of the day, it was responsible for some of the most far-reaching reforms in Turkish history’ (Öniş 2006: 284-285). Keyman and Düzgit indicate that since 2000 Turkey was undergoing radical changes and transformations, manifested mainly in the areas of democratization and its consolidation, and the restructuring of state-economy relations in a way that creates sustainable economic growth and development (Keyman, Düzgit 2007: 69).

It was only after the elections of November 2002, however, that the dominant political force of the new era, Justice and Development Party (AKP), was able to take over the leadership role in the pro-EU coalition (Keyman, Öniş 2007: 65).

At this point, we should make it clear that although processes of democratization and Europeanization are certainly closely connected, democratization cannot simply be imposed top-down via Europeanization (Dyson 2008: 53). Interesting contributions to this issue in Turkish case were made by T. Oguzlu and A. Kaliber.

T. Oguzlu uses approach distinguishing democratization process per se and democratization as taking place within the context of Turkey’s Europeanization process (i.e. democratization alongside the EU accession process). While the first process can theoretically occur independently of Turkey’s relationship with the EU, the second can never be thought of as taking place independently of Turkey’s Europeanization process. The question arising is to what extent Turkey’s Europeanization process included Turkey’s democratization (Oguzlu 2004: 94-95).

The work of A. Kaliber brings well-developed conceptualization of the terms which were discussed in this chapter and beyond that specifies the distinction between Europeanization and EU-ization. He argues that (supported by a number of scientists he refers to) as in the literature it is common to use Europe with reference to the European Union, thus making it the principal agent of change and also because the EU level is mostly treated as the starting point of a Europeanization study, then EU-ization is for many a more relevant term for the processes of domestic adaptation induced by the EU (Kaliber 2008: 6). In his distinction, ‘EU-ization refers to a more concrete and restricted sphere of alignment with EU’s body of law and institutions. Together with formal adaption processes through EU-ization, Europeanization presents a framework influencing the constitution and maintenance of social/national and post-national identities and the ways in which these identities are expressed and disseminated. EU-ization is an integral part of Europeanization; however, any progress in the former does not necessarily guarantee a similar degree of intensity and publicity as to the latter. This especially holds true for the Turkish case, where the EU-induced legal and institutional reforms (EU-ization) have gone further than the relatively achieved level of Europeanization’ (Kaliber 2008: 11-12).