Europeanization, democratization and human rights in Turkey

Abstract

A quick glance at Turkish politics and their changing nature since the mid-1990s produces two contrasting images of Turkey. The period between 1995 and 2000 shows a highly state-centric, security-orientated and crisis-ridden image of Turkey, tackling a number of serious problems, such as democratic deficit, human rights violations, the rule of law, economic instability, a legitimacy crisis, and a lack of foreign policy vision and orientation. In this period, the concomitant developments of different identity-based conflicts, namely those of the resurgence of Islam and the Kurdish problem, on the one hand, and the increasingly corruptionist and clientalist appearance of Turkish politics on the other, contributed to this image of Turkey. Contrary to this picture, however, since the year 2000 Turkey has appeared to be a country undergoing radical changes and transformations in its political, economic and cultural life. These changes have been manifested mainly in the areas of democratization and its consolidation, and the restructuring of state-economy relations in a way that creates sustainable economic growth and development. Moreover, there have emerged a number of serious attempts to make Turkish foreign policy more active, constructive and democratic, to create a more rights-based citizenship regime, and to overcome the existing regional, economic, political and cultural discrepancies and uneven developments.