EU enlargement between political conditionality and cultural compatibility as exemplified by the debate on Turkey in Europe

In view of the opening of EU membership negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005, this text deals with the debates on the country’s accession to the Union conducted to date both in the European countries and in Turkey itself. The main point of reference are the concepts of European identity that can be derived from the European and Turkish debates. A distinction is made between two lines of argument: on the one hand, the aspect of Turkey’s ‘cultural compatibility’ and, on the other, the aspect of ‘political conditionality’. Some problems that may arise from this both for the future of Europe and for Turkey’s future accession are examined. An additional excursus briefl y outlines the peculiarities of the Greek perspective on Turkey’s EU membership

Engaging Citizens in the fight against corruption : Results of the EU-Project “ALACs (Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres): Promotion of Participation and Citizenship in Europe”

The paper aims at presenting first results from the EU-funded project entitled “Promotion of Participation and Citizenship in Europe through the Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres (ALACs) of Transparency International” supported by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme. The research project is a joined venture between the Transparency International Secretariat and a team of scholars based at the universities of Konstanz, Duisburg-Essen and Warwick. ALACs have become over the last years an important instrument within the frame of the so-called International Anticorruption Regimes. ALACs enable direct engagement of citizens in the fight against corruption. They empower both victims and witnesses of corruption and provide channels for their grievances. The paper provides first of all insights into history, structure and function of ALACs as an important anti-corruption tool. By doing so, the paper comparatively focuses on how ALACs translate concerns of ordinary citizens on corruption cases into actions for systemic (legal, administrative and institutional) anti-corruption improvements through case and public advocacy

Klientelismus und Korruption

Die Finanzkrise in Griechenland hat fundamentale Mängel im politischen System des Landes offenbart. Hinter modernen rechtsstaatlichen Institutionen verbirgt sich ein bürokratisches und Korruption förderndes Klientelsystem, das seine Macht auf die Verteilung von nicht selbst erwirtschafteten Ressourcen stützte. Der Autor plädiert daher für eine grundlegende Kurskorrektur im Verhältnis zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft

Der innenpolitische Machtkampf in der Türkei und das Türkei-Engagement der EU

Vor dem Hintergrund der offen getragenen Kontroverse zwischen der AKP-geführten Regierung und dem Militär in der Periode 2007–2009 in der Türkei untersucht der Beitrag die politische Lage im Land und analysiert dabei drei grundlegende sozio-politische Komponenten: den Kemalismus, Islamismus und Nationalismus. Neuere Entwicklungen in diesen drei Bereichen werden hinsichtlich der Rolle der AKP-Partei sowie ihrer Auswirkungen auf die europäische Perspektive des Landes unter die Lupe genommen. Der Beitrag konzentriert sich schließlich auf die Frage, wie diese Entwicklungen auf die Türkei-Politik der Europäischen Union auswirken und welche Herausforderungen ihr dadurch in der Zukunft gestellt werden

Corruption as a problem of culture : a comparative cultural study of EU candidate member-states and the existing member states of Germany and Greece

The research project presented here aims to develop means to optimise corruption prevention in the EU. The urgency of such a project is reflected in the fact that corruption holds the potential to retard seriously the process of the Community’s enlargement and integration, even to the extent of threatening the very core of its concept of social order. The prevention policies that have been developed by the EU and implemented so far within individual member countries have in general been characterised by legislative, administrative and police force measures. These are based on a definition of corruption prevention developed in political and administrative institutions that, for its implementation, rely on a “top-down“ procedure.The project purports to conduct not an inquiry into the nature of corruption “as such“, but rather into the perceptions of corruption held by political and administrative decision-makers in specific regions and cultures, those held by actors representing various institutions and authorities, and above all by the citizens and the media in European societies. The project proceeds from the assumption that the considerably varying perceptions of corruption, determined as they are by “cultural dispositions”, have significant influence on a country’s respectiveawareness of the problem and thereby on the success of any preventative measures. For this reason, the project investigates the “fit” between “institutionalised“ prevention policies and how these are perceived in “daily practice“, as well as how EU candidate countries and EU member countries as a result handle the issue of corruption. In a final step, the research project intends to make specific recommendations for readjusting this “fit” and to investigate which role the media play within this process in each individual country