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Moving in from the Margins? Turkey in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Caglar Keyder
Caglar Keyder*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Bogazici University and Department of Sociology, State University of New York, Binghamton
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Abstract

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Historically Turkey has been the ‘other’ for Europe. Turkish identity has taken shape via an ambivalent relationship with an idealized Europe. There was resentment due to the perception of exclusion, but also an intense desire to belong. As the project of official association with the European Union progressed, each of the partners had to ask questions about the meaning of culture and identity. At first there was a conviction that the prospect of entry would never turn into reality. The entrenched state elite in Turkey could therefore go through the steps with impunity. However, after the 1990s, new Turkish social groups, independent of the state elite, took the project more seriously, and embarked on serious democratization, as promised in various agreements with the EU. At the same time the Union experienced a similar reversal, with Brussels envisaging Turkey's accession as a real possibility. This new alignment of forces led to an intense debate on the topics of European identity and the frontiers of Europe. If the EU opts for a more constitutional and less cultural representation of the meaning of Europe - thereby implying that its borders could extend even further in the future - then Turkey's accession may well take place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 72 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2006

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