6 - Kemalists, Conservatives, and Christians in Turkey

Summary

This chapter examines how domestic actors exploited the international context to execute their policy agendas in the Turkish context. It demonstrates how conservatives, who were heavily dominated and controlled by the secular elite, used Turkey’s European Union membership bid as an opportunity to constrain bureaucratic authoritarian institutions, including the military, and liberalized the Turkish political system. The chapter also shows how conservatives built a broad social coalition with liberals, social democrats, and minorities by using Europeanization as an instrument. This coalition, which included the Christian minority, facilitated the passing of reforms in favor of religious minorities.