Abstract
The genealogical case studies in the two preceding chapters examined how a medieval Christian repertoire of images of Muslims and Turks was reinterpreted to fit the historical meta-narratives of the European Reformations and Enlightenments, and their dominant tragic and comic tendencies respectively. This and the following chapter turn to present-day concerns and a pressing question: How should we understand contemporary relations between Turkey and the European Union in light of the historical legacy outlined so far in this book? This chapter proposes a first answer to this question by putting contemporary relations between Turkey and the European Union in its historical context, and by examining the peculiar nature of popular attitudes toward Turkey and Turks in the EU today. In so doing, the current chapter will adopt a more eclectic approach than the rest of the book, mainly because of the availability of quantitative data on attitudes in the contemporary period. Thus, the second part of this chapter constitutes an examination of survey data on opinions and attitudes in EU member states toward a possible Turkish EU accession, to see what it tells us about the relevance of said historical legacy. In order to identify the distinctive content, form, and function of some of the images and narratives that prevail in European public discourse today, the next chapter then turns to a discourse analysis of debates about Turkey in the European Parliament.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D.990–1990, Studies in Social Discontinuity (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1992).
Paul T. Levin, “Nation-State,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. William A. Jr. Darity (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008).
Though one may take issue with his distinction between “old continu¬ous nations” and the rest, Hugh Seton-Watson’s account of the dif¬ferent trajectories of European national states is still informative. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977).
Benedict R. O’G Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London; New York: Verso, 2006).
See e.g. Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (London: James Currey, 1992).
See e.g. Daniel Goffman, “The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe,” in New Approaches to European History, ed. William Beik and T. C. W. Blanning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Edward J. Erickson, “The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915,” War in History 15, no. 2 (2008).
For a different view, see e.g. John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, 2nd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993). Bruilly argues that few of the Christian communities in the Balkans harbored nation¬alist secessionist desires and that much of the impetus behind Balkan insurrections came from the western powers.
Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 3rd ed. Studies in Middle Eastern History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
For an account of WWI and foreign intervention, see e.g. Erik Jan Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 3rd ed. (London; New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004).
See e.g. Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) or Erickson, “The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915.”
Martin Marcussen et al., “Constructing Europe? The Evolution of Nation-State Identities,” in The Social Construction of Europe, ed. Thomas Christiansen, Knud Erik Jørgensen, and Antje Wiener (London: Sage, 2001).
Thomas Naff, “The Ottoman Empire and the European States System,” in The Expansion of International Society, ed. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 143. See e.g. Goffman, “The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe.” Goffman presents a different view grounded in careful historiographic work, which asserts that the Empire was firmly anchored in European eco-nomic and political structures.
See e.g. Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other: “The East” In European Identity Formation, ed. David and Shapiro Campbell, Michael J., vol. 9 Borderlines (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), or Asli Çirakman, From The “Terror of the World” To The “Sick Man of Europe”: European Images of Ottoman Empire and Society from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth, ed. Frank J Coppa, vol. 43, Studies in Modern European History (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2002).
Asli Çirakman, From The “Terror of the World” To The “Sick Man of Europe”: European Images of Ottoman Empire and Society from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth, ed. Frank J Coppa, vol. 43, Studies in Modern European History (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2002).
Brett Bowden, “In the Name of Progress and Peace: The ‘Standard of Civilization’ and the Universalizing Project,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, no. 1 (2004).
Apart from the above cited studies, see also e.g. Thomas Risse, “Nationalism and Collective Identities: Europe Versus the Nation-State?,” in Developments in West European Politics, ed. Paul Heywood, Eric Jones, and Martin Rhodes (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
This is a theme in the contributions in Nathalie Tocci, ed. Conditionality, Impact and Prejudice in Eu-Turkey Relations, vol. 9, Quaderni Iai English Series (Rome: Insituto Affari Internazionali-TEPAV, 2007). They consider different EU-member states’ position toward Turkey’s accession and present a rather diversified view of these countries’ ratio¬nales and attitudes. However, given the absence of a consistently applied structured comparative framework in this very informative report, it is at times hard to determine the extent to which this diversity is simply a result of the authors’ different assumptions and beliefs rather than actual differences in the countries they examine.
See Kivanç Ulusoy, “The Changing Challenge of Europeanization to Politics and Governance in Turkey,” International Political Science Review 30, no. 4 (2009). Ulusoy gives a recent account that empha¬sizes the continuities between the late Ottoman modernizing Tanzimat reforms, those of Atatürk’s modernizing Turkey, and the EU-inspired democratic reforms in present day Turkey.
Spyridon Kotsovilis, “Between Fedora and Fez: Modern Turkey’s Troubled Road to Democratic Consolidation and the Pluralizing Role of Erdogan’s Pro-Islam Government,” in Turkey and the European Union: Internal Dynamics and External Challenges, ed. Joseph S. Joseph (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 46.
Andrew Mango, Turkey: The Challenge of a New Role (Westport, CT: Praeger, published with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 1994), 86
Birol Yesilada, “The Mediterranean Challenge,” in The Expanding European Union: Past, Present, Future, ed. John Redmond and Glenda G. Rosenthal (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 178.
See Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, “The ‘Other’ in European Self-Definition: An Addendum to the Literature in International Society,” Review of International Studies 17, no. 4 (1991). They provide a comparative discussion of the Moroccan and Turkish applications and the question of European identity.
Esra Lagro and Knud Erik Jørgensen, “Introduction: Prospects for a Difficult Encounter,” in Turkey and the European Union: Prospects for a Difficult Encounter, ed. Esra Lagro and Knud Erik Jørgensen, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 5.
Joseph S. Joseph, “Introduction: Turkey at the Threshold of the European Union,” in Turkey and the European Union: Internal Dynamics and External Challenges, ed. Joseph S. Joseph (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 3–4; Mehmet Turkay, “Turkey’s Integration with the European Union: Modalities and Limitations,” in The Politics of Permanent Crisis: Class, Ideology and State in Turkey, ed. Nesecan Balkan and Sungur Savran (New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2002); William Hale and Gamze Avci, “Turkey and the European Union: The Long Road to Membership,” in Turkey in World Politics: An Emerging Multiregional Power, ed. Barry Rubin and Kemal Kirisci (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), 31. The Luxembourg Group consisted of Czhech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia.
Mehmet Turkay, “Turkey’s Integration with the European Union: Modalities and Limitations,” in The Politics of Permanent Crisis: Class, Ideology and State in Turkey, ed. Nesecan Balkan and Sungur Savran (New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2002)
William Hale and Gamze Avci, “Turkey and the European Union: The Long Road to Membership,” in Turkey in World Politics: An Emerging Multiregional Power, ed. Barry Rubin and Kemal Kirisci (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), 31. The Luxembourg Group consisted of Czhech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia.
Lauren McLaren, “Explaining Opposition to Turkish Membership of the EU,” European Union Politics 8, no. 2 (2007): 251–278.
Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Copyright information
© 2011 Paul T. Levin
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Levin, P.T. (2011). Turkey and the European Union: The Historical Legacy and Contemporary Attitudes. In: Turkey and the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119574_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119574_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-28919-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11957-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)