Support for European integration among Turks has dropped from 67% in 2002 to 34% in 2008,
with only 42% of Turks supporting enlargement in a 2011 Eurobarometer. As previous research
on Turkish Euroskepticism has demonstrated, the opposition to Turkish enlargement within
European states—the so-called ‘Turkoskepticism,’ as well as Turkish economic growth and
identity-based concerns are likely reasons for this declining trend. In this study, we push these
findings further to demonstrate the effects of Turkish foreign policy on EU support. Do the Turks
find the EU more favorable as their concerns on Iran, political Islam, or the Syrian civil war
increase? Using Pew Global Attitudes Project survey from 2013, we demonstrate that as Turks
view their regional neighborhood increasingly volatile and threatening, they see the European
Union as a more favorable actor. This effect is consistent across different model specifications,
and illustrates that concerns over the international political context is just as important in
explaining Turkish public attitudes toward the EU as some of the well-established utilitarian
explanations of support
