Review Article: Islamists to the fore in Turkey's pursuit of EU membership

Abstract

The book forms part of a series, produced by the Centre for European Union Studies at the University of Hull, that is designed to explore the inter-relationship between EU membership and the politics and policy-making of member and non-member states. Presently the series runs to six volumes including two on countries that are in (Poland and Greece); three on countries that are out (Norway, Iceland and Turkey); and, a sixth under the generic title The European Union and Democratisation. In the case of Turkey, the editors have identified as a major problem in the debate about that country’s EU aspirations a failure by foreign scholars and statesmen fully to appreciate the fundamental shift in the forces championing and promoting the cause of accession. Historically, the Kemalist, Republican elite was considered to be the main proponent of Westernization because of its insistence on secularism. However, the essayists argue, from varying perspectives, that Kemalism produced a nationalist, parochial and authoritarian regime that sought to preserve the rights and perquisites of the ruling elite even at the expense of the policy adjustment necessary to join the EU. Today, the authors argue, the true force for Europeanism in Turkey is a broad front of Islamists, business interests and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who represent the public at large—up to 90 per cent of whom are said to support EU membership because of the liberalization and equality of opportunity anticipated through the creation of a political culture based on human rights and civil liberties and a business environment founded on free market principles and common rules. Islamists, who hitherto had seen all their efforts to assume power by democratic means thwarted by the military, envisage the EU as a bastion of civil liberties and pursue membership in the hope that it will facilitate, in the name of human rights, the recognition of Islamist demands that hitherto had been suppressed by the secular state. That is to say, both they and their business and social partners are looking for the creation of the classic ‘level playing field’ that will provide equal access for all to determine the course of political development and what is considered to be in the public interest. The problem with the volume is that, from internal evidence, the writing of all but one of the 12 essays, was concluded before March 2003, when Tayyip