This book makes the case for looking afresh at Turkey-EU relations in order to appreciate the richness and complexity of a relationship which is now more than 50 years old and is still not close to reaching fulfilment. The contributors challenge conventional attempts to understand Turkey-EU relations, revealing that EU integration studies has been rather poor at understanding the global context within which Turkey-EU developments take place. More surprising perhaps, EU integration studies has also struggled to give sufficient weight to the potential of Turkey’s domestic politics to shape EU enlargement. The volume attempts to correct these imbalances by offering both a global context and new perspectives on the drivers of domestic politics. It represents a shift from a narrow EU integration/enlargement agenda. Turkey’s position vis-a-vis the EU cannot be adequately captured by simplistic notions of conditionality, harmonization, and an uncritical interpretation of Europeanization. A more rounded view of Turkey-EU relations is advanced based upon a broader context of European and global transformations. The contributions, collected here, offer an interpretation of Turkey-EU relations from a novel perspective, utilize a new framework of theory, and draw upon insights and perspectives from disciplines underrepresented in mainstream study of Turkey-EU relations.
This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies.