Exploring the Implementation of Minority Protection Rules in the ‘Worlds of Compliance’: The Case of Turkey

Abstract The legal adoption and implementation of minority protection rules in both EU member and candidate countries is a highly contested issue that varies across countries. As the status of European Union (EU) candidate country most debated, Turkey represents relatively a success story in minority rights due to the intensive minority-related legal adoption and increasing implementation in the accession process. The acceleration of the process is puzzling due to the fast transition to the implementation phase in a candidate country, of which the membership prospect has still been debated. Therefore, Turkey represents an interesting case, providing an empirical arena to explore factors that influence the implementation process. Suggesting a revised version of comprehensive ‘worlds of compliance’ that could be applied to the candidate states as a filter of explanatory factors for implementation, this article argues, that two worlds of compliance matter in Turkey's compliance with minority rights: world of domestic politics for implementation process, influenced by the domestic choice of the Turkish government; and world of law observance for legal adoption driven by the EU's credible conditionality.