Necessary but not sufficient: the role of the EU in resolving Turkey's Kurdish question and the Greek--Turkish conflicts.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the role of the European Union (EU) in resolving Turkey's Kurdish question and the Greek-Turkish conflicts. The results yield important insights, both in terms of evaluating the role of the EU in conflict resolution and of assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Conflict Resolution and European Studies literatures

Identity representations in the narratives on the EU-Turkey relations

This study aims to situate contemporary debates on the EU-Turkey relations in a broader historical context. It argues that understanding from where current narratives come and identifying their constituents, and particularly the narrators’ mutual perceptions on each other, which have endured through decades or even centuries, contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship in critical ways. The paper is based on the results of two historically oriented studies carried out within the framework of the FEUTURE project -a narrative analysis as well as an analysis of identity representations since the 19thcentury- both of which adopted a comparative approach by analysing European and Turkish sources. Among others, the paper asserts that the EU and Turkey, both historically and in the present, have been important for each other in their identity construction. It argues that one of the most defining characteristics of the narratives and identities over time is their changing nature. The paper finds that narratives and identity construction processes also intertwined also with drivers at different levels, by the respective historical and political context. From a contemporary perspective, it finds that narratives on both sides have become more conflictual and that relations are likely to be dominated by conflictual elements also in the nearer future. This is, however, coupled with a constantly present conviction of the importance of Turkey for Europe and vice versa.FEUTURE projesi kapsamında tamamlanan iki ayrı nitel araştırmayı sentezleyen bu çalışma, Avrupa Birliği-Türkiye ilişkilerine dair güncel tartışmaları geniş bir çerçevede ve tarihsel bağlamda ele almayı amaçlamaktadır. Çalışma, günümüz siyasi anlatılarının ve bu anlatıların geçmişi onlarca yıla dayanan bileşenlerinin -örneğin aktörlerin kendilerine ve birbirine ilişkin müşterek algılarının- araştırılmasının, söz konusu ilişkilerin bütünüyle anlaşılabilmesi için kritik öneme sahip olduğunu ileri sürmektedir. Bu kapsamda yararlanılan araştırmalardan ilki, Türkiye’den ve Avrupa Birliği’nden siyasi aktörlerin ilişkilerin resmi olarak başladığı 1959 yılından günümüze baskın anlatılarını resmi belgelere dayanan geniş bir veri setiyle ve nitel veri analizi (Qualitative Data Analysis, QDA) yöntemiyle inceleyen anlatı analizidir (Narrative Analysis). Bunun yanı sıra, çalışmada, Türkiye’den ve Avrupa’dan çeşitli aktörlerin birbirlerine ilişkin kimlik ve kültür algılarını 18. Yüzyıl sonlarından başlayarak ve ele alınan dönemin siyasi ve kültürel faktörlerine binaen irdeleyen üç bütünleyici söylev analizine (Discourse Analysis) yer verilmektedir. Bu çalışmada bir araya getirilen farklı ancak birbirini tamamlayan iki veri seti, yöntem ve sorunsal, AB-Türkiye ilişkilerindeki örüntülere siyasi anlatılar ve kimlik tasvirleri yönünden ışık tutabilecek, kapsamlı ve ender bir araştırma zemini sağlamaktadır. Çalışma kapsamında varılan temel sonuç, anlatıların her iki tarafta da giderek daha çelişkili hale geldiği ve ilişkilerin yakın gelecekte de 'çatışma' hâkimiyetinde sürmesinin olası olduğudur. Bununla birlikte, tarafların karşılıklı olarak birbirlerine atfettikleri önem ve karşılıklı dayanışmaya yaptıkları vurgu yine yakın gelecekte ilişkilerde belli bir ölçü dahilinde 'işbirliği' olacağına işaret etmektedir

Turkish and European identity constructions in the 1815-1945 period

FEUTURE Online Paper No. 4 This FEUTURE paper focuses on Turkey’s and Europe’s perceptions of each other in identity and cultural terms between two periods: 1789-1922 and 1923-1945. It identifies the identity representations developed by both sides in response to key selected political and cultural drivers of these periods by subjecting the writings of prominent Ottoman bureaucrats and intellectuals in the first period as well as newspaper articles and editorials in Europe and Turkey in both periods to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Identity representations are then discussed in relation to the pre-identified focal issues in the relationship; namely nationalism, status in international society, civilisation and state-citizen relations. The paper finds that there is no linear pattern to identity representations that are constantly contested in both the Turkish and European contexts. Certain positive and negative events trigger identity representations in novel ways, feeding into a set of relations which can be identified by conflict, convergence or cooperation.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 692976. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

Enacting multi-layered citizenship: Turkey's Armenians' struggle for justice and equality

Throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, Turkey's Armenians have been subjected to a trade-off between the limited minority rights granted by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty and equal national citizenship. Traditionally a closed, depoliticized community, the citizenship practices of the Armenian minority have become increasingly differentiated in recent years. Building on a notion of citizenship as multi-layered and constituted through collective practice, this article investigates the implications of the political acts of Turkey's Armenian minority on sub-national and national citizenship in Turkey. We show that Turkey's Armenians are coupling rights demands, identification, normative references, and mobilization at the sub-national, national, and transnational levels in innovative ways, and are thereby negotiating different layers of citizenship in Turkey in a way that strengthens equal national citizenship

Enacting European citizenship beyond the EU: Turkish citizens and their European political practices

By conceiving of Europe as a broad juridico-political space and order that extends beyond the European Union (EU), this chapter sets out to comparatively analyse the ways in which four citizen groups in Turkey, namely Kurds, non-Muslims, youth and women, enact European citizenship. Although these groups are neither citizens nor residents of EU member states, and hence not in possession of EU citizenship as a legal status, they routinely engage in acts of European citizenship as they demand the extension and full implementation of their citizenship rights in Turkey. Their acts of European citizenship include petitioning the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR); contacting EU officials and politicians; mobilising campaigns that target EU institutions and the European public writ large; invocation of European norms as shared principles; and the attribution of political and moral responsibility to European institutions. The fact that Turkish citizens can, and routinely do, engage in acts of European citizenship attests to Europe being an ultimately open and dynamic assemblage, constituted by both those who are deemed to be ‘in and of’ its historically specific incarnation and those who are left out and excluded. The chapter begins by providing a detailed account of a number of episodes where different groups in Turkey have engaged in multi-layered citizenship acts which embody a European citizenship dimension in addition to the national and, possibly, the sub-national. The following sections of the chapter build on these rich empirical accounts derived from in-depth interviews with activists and analysis of published accounts and news articles. Firstly, we outline the ways in which European-level political activism by Turkish citizens redefines and extends the scope of European citizenship beyond the formal institutions of the EU into associated institutions in the broader European order and into informal networks. Secondly, we analyse the meanings that Turkish citizens ascribe to their European-level political practices, and contend that they are embedded in a broader discourse on Europe as a shared identity and normative order

Agonistic Recognition as a Remedy for Identity Backlash : Insights from Israel and Turkey

While an extensive part of the conflict transformation literature stresses the importance of transforming the identities of conflict parties through recognition, it fails to recognise the propensity of such transformations to generate ontological insecurity and dissonance, and consequently a possible backlash towards antagonistic identities. Drawing on agonistic thought, we develop a conception of agonistic recognition, premised on non-finalism, pluralist multilogue and disaggregated recognition. We suggest that these elements of agonistic recognition may guard against the development of ontological insecurity and dissonance in recognition processes. We comparatively analyse the connections and tensions between recognition, ontological insecurity/dissonance and identity backlash experienced during the transformation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the context of the Oslo Peace Process in the 1990s and Turkey’s ‘rapprochement’ with Greece in the context of its EU accession process in the 2000s. We also assess the presence of the elements of agonistic recognition in these two conflict transformation processes. Our contribution constitutes an important step towards the specification of agonistic peace in terms of its underlying recognition processes and in developing the empirical study of agonistic elements in actual conflict transformation processes

Constructivist approaches to EU-Turkey relations

This chapter provides a critical survey of constructivist approaches to EU–Turkey relations, which place significance on the role of norms, identities, discourse, ideas, and values in the relationship. It outlines the main contours of the constructivist school of thought in International Relations (IR) with a discussion of how the different variants of constructivism can be applied to the study of the case of EU–Turkey relations. It is followed by an illustrative survey of the academic contributions in the field of EU–Turkey relations that base their accounts on constructivist theoretical premises in three periods: 1997–1999, 2000–2010, and 2011–2020. The chapter concludes with a discussion of potential areas for further constructivist research on EU–Turkey relations