IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erp/kfgxxx/p0014.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unpacking the Compliance Puzzle - The Case of Turkey‘s AKP under EU Conditionality

Author

Listed:
  • Beken Saatcioglu

Abstract

What explains the EU compliance of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)? Since it came to power in 2002, AKP has launched legislative reforms in order to meet the European Union’s political membership criteria (i.e., democracy, rule of law, human rights and minority rights). These reforms are puzzling since they happened in the absence of the two conditions of compliance argued in the literature: (1) credible EU political conditionality, (2) liberal ruling parties in EU candidate states. I argue that AKP’s pro-EU reform agenda is explained by neither a belief in the possibility of membership via democratization (credible conditionality) nor liberal political identity. Rather, democratic measures under AKP are instrumentally induced. Two broad political motivations have guided AKP’s reform commitment: (1) the electoral incentive to please Turkey’s pro-EU membership electorate as well as AKP’s conservative/religious constituency eager to see freedom of religion expanded under EU conditionality, (2) the motive to use reforms to weaken domestic secular forces (i.e. the military and high courts) and survive as a party with Islamist roots in Turkey’s secular political system. The paper supports the argument with evidence gathered from original coding data for both conditionality and compliance as well as process-tracing.

Suggested Citation

  • Beken Saatcioglu, 2011. "Unpacking the Compliance Puzzle - The Case of Turkey‘s AKP under EU Conditionality," KFG Working Papers p0014, Free University Berlin.
    • Handle: RePEc:erp:kfgxxx:p0014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/kfgeu/kfgwp/wpseries/WorkingPaperKFG_14.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schimmelfennig, Frank, 2005. "Strategic Calculation and International Socialization: Membership Incentives, Party Constellations, and Sustained Compliance in Central and Eastern Europe," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(4), pages 827-860, October.
    2. Sandra Lavenex & Frank Schimmelfennig, 2006. "Relations with the Wider Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(s1), pages 137-154, September.
    3. Schimmelfennig, Frank, 2001. "The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(1), pages 47-80, January.
    4. Sandra Lavenex & Frank Schimmelfennig, 2006. "Relations with the Wider Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44, pages 137-154, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrea Gawrich & Inna Melnykovska & Rainer Schweickert, 2010. "Neighbourhood Europeanization through ENP: The Case of Ukraine," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 1209-1235, November.
    2. Tobias Böhmelt & Tina Freyburg, 2013. "The temporal dimension of the credibility of EU conditionality and candidate states’ compliance with the acquis communautaire, 1998–2009," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 250-272, June.
    3. Thorsten Drautzburg & Andrea Gawrich & Inna Melnykovska, 2008. "Institutional Convergence of CIS Towards European Benchmarks," CASE Network Reports 0082, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    4. Franke, Anja & Gawrich, Andrea & Melnykovska, Inna & Schweickert, Rainer, 2009. "Resource-based reluctance, reversed asymmetry, and non-trade integration incentives: theory and evidence from European neighbourhood," Kiel Working Papers 1551, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Eli Gateva, 2010. "Post-Accession Conditionality - Support Instrument for Continuous Pressure?," KFG Working Papers p0018, Free University Berlin.
    6. Mareike Kleine, 2013. "Daniel Finke, Thomas König, Sven-Oliver Proksch and George Tsebelis. 2012. Reforming the European Union: Realizing the Impossible (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press)," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 111-115, March.
    7. Adler, Emanuel & Crawford, Beverly, 2004. "Normative Power: The European Practice of Region Building and the Case of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP)," Institute of European Studies, Working Paper Series qt6xx6n5p4, Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley.
    8. Tanja A. Börzel, 2010. "The Transformative Power of Europe Reloaded - The Limits of External Europeanization," KFG Working Papers p0011, Free University Berlin.
    9. Jasper Krommendijk, 2015. "The domestic effectiveness of international human rights monitoring in established democracies. The case of the UN human rights treaty bodies," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 489-512, December.
    10. Gerda Falkner, 2011. "Interlinking neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism: Sidelining governments and manipulating policy preferences as "passerelles"," Working Papers of the Vienna Institute for European integration research (EIF) 3, Institute for European integration research (EIF).
    11. Kerstin Radtke, 2014. "ASEAN Enlargement and Norm Change – A Window of Opportunity for Democracy and Human Rights Entrepreneurs?," Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 33(3), pages 79-105.
    12. Paul Novosad & Eric Werker, 2019. "Who runs the international system? Nationality and leadership in the United Nations Secretariat," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-33, March.
    13. Wilde, Pieter de & Junk, Wiebke Marie & Palmtag, Tabea, 2016. "Accountability and opposition to globalization in international assemblies," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 823-846.
    14. Rachel A. Epstein & Wade Jacoby, 2014. "JCMS Special Issue 2014: Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East-West Divide? Guest Editors: Rachel A. Epstein and Wade Jacoby," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 1-16, January.
    15. Rebecca Adler-Nissen, 2016. "Towards a Practice Turn in EU Studies: The Everyday of European Integration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 87-103, January.
    16. Tanja A. Börzel, 2011. "When Europeanization Hits Limited Statehood. The Western Balkans as a Test Case for the Transformative Power of Europe," KFG Working Papers p0030, Free University Berlin.
    17. Stephen, Matthew D., 2015. "‘Can you pass the salt?’ The legitimacy of international institutions and indirect speech," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 21(4), pages 768-792.
    18. Tana Johnson & Johannes Urpelainen, 2020. "The more things change, the more they stay the same: Developing countries’ unity at the nexus of trade and environmental policy," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 445-473, April.
    19. David Schäfer, 2016. "A Banking Union of Ideas? The Impact of Ordoliberalism and the Vicious Circle on the EU Banking Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 961-980, July.
    20. Eren Ozalay Sanli, 2011. "Evaluating Current Turkish Politics in Light of Democratization and Europeanization Theories: The Case of Education Reforms," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 7-25.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Turkey; democracy; Europeanization; Europeanization;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:erp:kfgxxx:p0014. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sasan ABDI (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.transformeurope.eu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.