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| Volume IX, June 2002, Number 2 |
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| EXCERPT: Turkey's EU Membership: A Clash of Security Cultures |
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| Hasan Kosebalaban |
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Mr. Kösebalaban is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Utah.
Turkish identity politics are com-
monly explained as a clash
between two forces, the modern-
izing state and the traditional society. According to this model, Turkish modernization has taken place because of efforts of the state against the resistance of societal forces. It is true that a limited modernization, primarily understood and practiced as material Westernization, was largely a state-imposed project during the last decades of the Ottoman Empire and the first decades of the Turkish Republic. The West was perceived as the only source of civilization to which Turkey tried to belong. Turkish foreign policy has been put into the service of this national goal of becoming a part of Europe. In accordance with this policy line, Turkey became a member of NATO and eventually applied to become a member of the European Union (EU). Turkish participation in NATO was welcomed due to Western security needs -- no questions asked about its internal political system. The EU application, however, has not been as smooth.
The EU demands that its prospective members meet a number of conditions. In the 1993 Copenhagen European Council, it was decided that the fitness of candidates for membership would be judged by a number of criteria concerning economic and political reforms including minority rights. More important, as an evolving supranational political entity, the EU requires its members to relinquish a substantial portion of their national sovereignty to its centralized decision-making body. What started as a loose economic cooperation among European nation-states is steadily evolving into a supranational political entity with a common economic, defense and foreign policy. It is this reality that upsets the sensitive balance between nationalism and Westernization within Turkish political and intellectual elites.
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