Europeanisation of Turkish Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East

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Europeanisation of Turkish Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East THE EUROPEANISATION OF TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS THE MIDDLE EAST A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy DEFNE GUNAY Department of Politics The University of Sheffield October 2012 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Doing a PhD is not easy. My PhD turned out to be the most difficult journey that I have taken in my life. But thankfully I had amazing help and company in this journey. My family has always stood by me in all the ups and downs and they have never lost their faith in me. I owe this thesis to their support. I am grateful for my mum’s, dad’s, aunt’s, grandmother’s help and support throughout this journey. My supervisors Simon Bulmer and Ian Bache have been encouraging and supportive at all stages of the PhD and I am grateful for their supervision. Simon has always managed to find time for supervision despite his very busy schedule to give me the most helpful advice and guidance for my research. Thanks to Ian’s very valuable feedback on the first draft. I am also grateful that I have known lovely people in Elmfield and the GRC over the past five years in Sheffield: Jojo, Laura, Gabe, Flo, Adie, Dai, Rory, Ali, Hilal, Nuray, Joe who have shared their jokes, pints and shopping adventures with me. Thanks to Alaaddin for his lovely cat videos and his support. Suruchi has always been there for me throughout my five years in Sheffield, simply sharing everything with me including houses, successes and fears. Ozlem has always comforted me in our ‘Cesop’ discussions by comforting me that he is impossible to comprehend, while Berna and Özgün have always encouraged us to have faith in ourselves. Sarah Cooke has always been supportive, always solving crises with a smile on her face. Her support on the viva day is a necessary ingredient in all successful research degrees. Sarah Moga and Sarah Archibald have also been amazing with everything about teaching. Problems somehow looked smaller when I talked to iii them. Finally, I should extend my gratitude to the University of Sheffield Overseas Research Studentship for allowing me to spend four years of my PhD research in Sheffield, getting the opportunity to know all these amazing people. iv ABSTRACT This thesis is an exploration of the Europeanisation of Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Middle East. The mainstream conceptualisation of Europeanisation in the foreign policy domain is based on a frequently used tripartite framework of uploading, downloading and socialisation. This framework is based on uploading preferences or templates by member states to the `EU level,` downloading policies from the `EU level` and socialisation of national foreign policy actors at the `EU level.` When the research direction turns towards EU candidates, the conceptualisation of the `EU level` becomes problematic due to the candidates being unable to upload their preferences to the EU. I argue in this thesis that these are issues that can benefit from a closer reflection on the conceptualisation of the so-called ‘EU level’ and how it interacts with domestic agency. Therefore, this thesis starts by conceptualising ‘EU candidacy’ as an institutional context to address the shortcomings of the mainstream Europeanisation model in its application to candidate states. This conceptualisation is based on the strategic-relational approach and a critical realist methodology for embedding this research into a new institutionalist agenda. It is analysed in this thesis how the usages of Turkey’s EU candidate role prescriptions by Turkish actors have shaped Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Middle East between 1999 and 2010. In this vein, this thesis analyses how the institutionalisation of Turkey’s EU candidate role has enabled Turkey`s foreign policy towards the Middle East since the 1999 Helsinki decision of the EU to declare Turkey as a candidate country. The main argument is that the institutionalisation of EU candidate role regarding compliance with the Copenhagen criteria and the foreign policy acquis of the EU through the usages by domestic actors has had enabled Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Middle East. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................................iii ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................................................... v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Scope of the Middle East and the Time Frame .......................................................... 4 1.2 Foreign Policy (Analysis) and Europeanisation ................................................................ 5 1.3 Thesis outline ................................................................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER TWO: EUROPEANISATION AND FOREIGN POLICY ................................................. 14 2.1 Europeanisation ........................................................................................................................... 14 2.1.1 Agency in Europeanisation .................................................................................................. 21 2.2 Europeanisation of Foreign Policy ....................................................................................... 24 2.2.1 Convergence and the Europeanisation of foreign policy ...................................... 25 2.2.2 Misfit and the Europeanisation of Foreign Policy ................................................... 27 2.2.3 Downloading, Uploading and the Europeanisation of Foreign Policy ............. 28 2.2.4 Identity Reconstruction, Socialisation and Cross-loading ................................... 31 2.3 Europeanisation of Candidate Country Foreign Policies ............................................ 36 2.4 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................... 48 3.1 The Four New Institutionalisms ............................................................................................ 49 3.1.1 Rational Choice Institutionalism..................................................................................... 50 vii 3.1.2 Sociological Institutionalism ........................................................................................... 52 3.1.3 Historical Institutionalism ................................................................................................ 56 3.1.4 Discursive Institutionalism .............................................................................................. 61 3.1.5 Constructivist Institutionalism and the Strategic-Relational Approach ....... 62 3.2 Combining the New Institutionalisms and the SRA ...................................................... 68 3.3 EU Candidacy as an Institutional Context .......................................................................... 70 3.3.1 Relational nature of EU candidacy ................................................................................ 71 3.3.2 The Value-added of conceptualising EU candidacy from an institutionalist perspective ......................................................................................................................................... 79 3.4 Research Design ........................................................................................................................... 80 3.4.1 Research Methods ................................................................................................................ 87 3.5 Summary and a definition ........................................................................................................ 93 CHAPTER FOUR: HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF TURKEY’S FOREIGN POLICY-- BETWEEN EAST AND WEST .................................................................................................................. 96 4.1 Westernisation Reforms in the late Ottoman Empire .................................................. 97 4.2 Republican Turkey between East and West: 1923-1945 .......................................... 102 4.3 Republican Turkey between East and West: 1946-1960 .......................................... 108 4.4 Republican Turkey between East and West: 1960-80 ............................................... 112 4.5 Turkey between East and West: 1983- 1990 ................................................................. 120 4.6 Turkey between East and West: 1990- 1999 ................................................................. 124 4.7 Turkey between East and West: The 2000s and the puzzle .................................... 132 4.8 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 140 CHAPTER FIVE: EUROPEANISATION AND FOREIGN POLICY ACTORS ............................ 142 5.1 The EU’s Role Prescription ...................................................................................................
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