The Political Parties and the Accession of Turkey to the European Union: The Transformation of the Political Space Evren Celik Vienna School of Governance
Introduction Taking into account the diverse ideological characters and the constituencies of the major political parties in conjunction with the historical cleavages among them, the deepening polarization around the EU accession can be considered to have implications beyond sheer electoral strategies in Turkish politics. The present dissertation project aims to elucidate the variation in the political party positions on the EU accession (dependent variable) mainly as the result of the party system change (independent variable) and the effect of EU-induced institutional transformation on the parties new discourses and political strategies (independent variable) in contemporary Turkey. The research will focus on the following themes: Ideologies, issues, and the institutional change.
Research Questions What leads political parties to pro or anti European positions in Turkey? (main question) What are the reasons for the variance among political parties in adopting pro and anti EU positions? What explains the dynamism of the policy positions of the selected parties on EU accession across time? (2002-2009) II) Is ideology an explanatory factor? III) What are the primary issues regarding the EU accession that the parties focus? IV) What impact do the EU-induced institutional transformation has on the parties in terms of adopting new discourses and redefining political strategies?
Conceptualization Kopecky and Mudde (2002): On the strategic dimension: The EU-optimists endorsing both the EU itself as well as the way it develops, and EU-pessimists not supporting the EU at the moment, or critical of the way it is developing. On the ideological dimension: Europhiles (accepting in principle the idea of European integration) and Europhobes (outright rejection of integration). Taggart and Szczerbiak (2002): The outright rejection of the unification project as a hard political stance towards Europe, and a contestation based on concrete policy discontent on instrumental issues as a soft critique of integration
Theoretical Frame (I) The Literature- The Impact of the EU on Party Politics A) The old member states While Mair (2000) argues that the impact of Europe on the domestic politics is quite limited, Hix and Lord (1997) argue that it represents an additional factor to the existing cleavages. Kriesi (2005) puts forwards that the political (supra national authority), economic (market liberalization), and social-cultural (immigration and social change) challenges of European integration constitute a new dynamic for party mobilization.
Theoretical Frame(II) B) The new member states Marks, et al (2006) suggest that: Conflicts over European integration mimic the basic conflicts that structure these (CEE) societies. The chief source of internal party conflict arises not from contending ideological pressures, as in the West, but from the new choices and constraints implied by membership. Bielasiak (2004), based on the East European cases, argues that: Nor do party families or left/right ideological spectrum emerge as clear cut indicator of the parties abilities to use the political environment to mobilize support for questioning the value of accession.
Theoretical Frame (III) C) The accession countries Taggart and Szczerbiak (2004) argue that: i) All countries with more imminent prospects of accession have manifestations of hard party-based Euroscepticism, while those with less imminent prospects do not. ii) Euroscepticism draws from a range of party families extending across the left and right of the political spectrum. iii) There is a bunching of Eurosceptical parties on the right side of the left-right political spectrum. iv) Euroscepticism is used by some parties at the peripheries of their party systems to reinforce their outsider status. v) Some mainstream parties have a tendency to express soft Euroscepticism. Williams (1999), Schimmelfenning (2002), and Vachudova (2005) argue: The EU s impact on the candidate countries is not uniform; rather it is very much related to their domestic politics.
Hypotheses Current explanatory variables derived from the literature Party ideology The internal party dynamics (party governance) Party system change (i.e. emergence of new parties in the system) The effect of EU-induced institutional transformation on the parties new discourses and political strategies The official position of the EU on the progress of Turkey s accession, the reports of the EU institutions and the declaration of the EU officials
Methodology Two thematically relevant areas of investigation will be covered for evidence regarding the formulation of policy positions by the political parties on Turkey s accession to the EU: Policy and programmatic content: The primary documents such as manifestos, electoral statements, parliamentary and party congress minutes, and official publications of the selected parties will be scrutinized through qualitative content analysis. The intra-party dynamics: The expert interviews with the party representatives who have active role in policy formulation processes in their party units to address the decision-making structure within the party, and the impact of the membership profile and links between the party and the electorate.
The Research Design The research employs temporal comparison across two periods of Turkey-EU relations. The first period (2002-2005) will focus on the accelerated reform process during the majority party government. It will provide evidence to show the impact of the party system change on the course of Turkey-EU relations and pace of reforms. Furthermore, the parliamentary debates over the reform packages will be analyzed to show the major issues of contestation and the decisive points of position shifts by the parties. The second period (2005-2009) will focus on the debates since the beginning of accession negotiations. The attitudinal change of the governing party and the nature of the growing Eurosceptism by the opposition will be analyzed.
The Turkish Case The party system change emergence of the governing AKP (post-islamist, conservative) its initial Pro-EU stance- its evolving position government goals party goals CHP (center-left), main opposition party pro EU (2002-2005). EU-sceptic (2005-) EU-scepticism as a political opposition tool Reacting to EU-induced institutional change (ideological reaction) MHP (ultra nationalist---anti-eu) ideological opposition-constant over time DTP (ethnic-regionalist ---pro-eu) - issue based concern (settlement of the conflict in the Kurdish region) strategic support
Turkish Political Parties Positions on the EU 2002-2005 2005-2009 AKP Pro-EU (enthusiastic) Pro-EU (less enthusiastic) MHP Anti-EU Anti-EU CHP Pro-EU Anti-EU(soft-sceptic) DTP Pro-EU Pro-EU
The Key Dates 2002- The government change 2002-2004- The accelerated EU reforms 2005- The start of the negotiations between Turkey and the EU 2006 EU has frozen the talks on 8 out of 35 chapters 2007- The parliamentary elections 2008 The Turkish National Programme for the EU Accession 2009 The EU Commission's Progress Report on Turkey
The Provisional Chapter Outline I) Introduction- Research Design II) Literature Review II.1) The current explanations on party politics of EU at the national level II.2) The current literature on Turkish political parties and EU II.3) Locating the research within the literature III) Theory Chapter-Constitutive Theory Building-Presentation of the hypotheses IV) Methodology Qualitative Content Analysis & Expert Interviews V) Empirical Chapter V.1) Party System change V.2) Party Ideology V.3) Internal Party Dynamics (Party Governance) V.4) The effect of EU-induced institutional transformation on the parties V.5) The official position of the EU on the progress of Turkey s accession V.6) The Turco-scepticism and its impact on the course of EU-Turkey relations VI) Discussion of the results Illustrating how the theoretical frame works through a comparative case study of the Turkish parties over time. (2002-2009) VII) Conclusion, implications, future studies