Shifting From Europeanization to De-Europeanization in Turkey: How AKP Instrumentalized EU Negotiations

It has been widely studied by many Turkish and foreign scholars the European Union (EU), Europeanization and EU-Turkey relations and its effects since recently. Nevertheless, unpredictable transformation of Europeanization is relatively a new concept which has begun widely studied upon. After 2011, de-Europeanization process showed itself with slow Europeanization which by AKP defended as the reason of weakened EU conditionality. This article argues de-Europeanization is influenced by both EU and domestic factors, combining both the demotivation of the Turkish government and Turkish public about EU and the weakened EU conditionality which make Turkey’s membership a continuous process. In this context this article first aims to define Europeanization and de-Europeanization processes under the influence of domestic factors (i.e. AKP government policies) and EU conditionality. Afterwards, this article gives details about the transformation process from Europeanization to de-Europeanization in Turkey by deeply analyzing domestic factors and the effect of EU conditionality. Article concludes that AKP government used extending membership process as a policy tool in order to stay on power putting forward EU’s vetoes and blocked accession process.