Ozkurt, Fatma Zeynep
The impact of the European Union on the democratization process of Turkey: Application of democratic conditionality
By the early 1990s a considerable literature had developed around the international dimension of democratization. Until the onset of globalization in the 1980s, much of the concentration had been on the internal dimension of democratization where the causes of democratization processes had been explained by the operationalization of various structural and political domestic factors such as the power of ‘state’, the ‘degree of national unity’, the ‘level of political institutionalization’, ‘economic development’ and ‘political culture’ (Yilmaz 2009: 92).
However, in the 1990s, attributable to the effects of globalization and consequent changes at the international level, the research on the international dimension of democratization, particularly on the external and internal linkages on democratization processes has gained importance. Given that, the research agenda has focused on the identification and definition of certain influence mechanisms through which international factors and actors become pertinent to the democratization process within countries. Along those lines, due to its willingness to export its democratic credentials and political conditions, the European Union (EU) has been assigned with a leading role as a promoter of democracy; hence setting a new agenda for democratization studies by raising questions about its impact on the promotion of democracy around the world.
In my project, I aim to analyze the impact of the EU and the EU democratic conditionality on the democratization process of Turkey by systematically focusing on four areas: the military, freedom of expression, minority rights and the judiciary; and I aim to structure my analysis around specific rule/policy adoptions and their implementations in the following time periods: 1999-2002, 2002-2005, and 2005-2008. My objective is to shed light on the functioning, effectiveness and limitations of the EU’s efforts as an external component of democracy promotion in a hard case – Turkey. By looking at Turkey, I expect to broaden both the theoretical understanding and empirical findings of international and internal dimensions of the democratization process and conditionality-compliance dichotomy.
Dr Lauren McLaren and Dr Jan Meyer-Sahling
CSEG