Gezi park protest and the coup d’etat : EU democratic conditionality in Turkiye’s frozen accession negotiations

Abstract

Turkiye's desire to become a part of the European Union has existed even before the country became a republic, championed by the republicans of the country who view Europe as a source of economic, political, and social progress. Turkiye is the country that has been in the accession process, called accession negotiations, the longest, a process that every candidate country must go through. The glimmer of hope in these accession negotiations was finally extinguished in 2018 when the process was put on standstill by the Council of the European Union. "Standstill" is actually a somewhat ambiguous status because it does not specify in detail whether Turkiye's accession negotiations have been canceled or will not be continued. Furthermore, the reason for the standstill status was not explicitly stated in the decision issued, such as what event or Turkish government policy was considered the most significant contributing factor to the decision to put the accession negotiations on standstill. Scholars also provide various interpretations regarding the most contributing factors, including increased authoritarianism under the leadership of the AKP, territorial disputes with Greece, the Cyprus conflict, and cultural and social differences between Turkiye and European societies. This thesis argues that there are two major events considered to have significantly contributed to the council's decision to put the process on standstill. These events are analyzed using democratic conditionality theory and the process tracing research method on the two cases. Additionally, this research validates findings by comparing them with the scholarly statements made by three scholars concerned with Turkiye and the European Union.