Shifting Logics: The Discourses of Turkish Political Elites on EU Accession

Legitimizing Europe in Contested Settings: Europe as a Normative Power in Turkey?

“…There is a consensus in the literature that the stalemate in accession negotiations along with mixed messages from the EU on the desirability of Turkish membership have significantly weakened the EU's credibility of conditionality vis‐à‐vis Turkey, thus leading to a weakening of the EU's democratic leverage and the loss of its appeal as a normative actor in the country (Müftüler‐Baç, ; Saatçioğlu, ). Scholars have demonstrated how the EU is no longer being framed by political parties as a normative actor promoting the consolidation of Turkish democracy (Alpan, ; Balkır and Eylemer, ) and how Euroscepticism is vocally espoused by the country's governing elite (Aydın‐Düzgit, ). Yet, with the exception of quantitative studies based on Eurobarometer and other survey data (Çarkoğlu and Kentmen, ; Kentmen, ; Yılmaz, ), there has been no empirical study to gauge the Turkish public's perceptions of the European project.…”