You are here

Reconsidering the Incompatibility Between European Orientation and Cyprus Policy: Westphalian and Post-Westphalian Approaches to Turkey\'s Cyprus Policy and the EC/EU

Journal Name:

Publication Year:

Author NameUniversity of Author
Abstract (2. Language): 
The recent changes in Turkey’s Cyprus policy have spurred a new debate as to whether Turkey’s foreign policy has been Europeanized, now that the previous sources of tension have seemingly been abated. Focusing on how this policy has been defined in the official discourse in relation to Turkey’s European orientation, hence taking European orientation as a domestically constructed discourse, this study seeks to show that it would be problematic to view the government’s tendency to refrain from framing the issue as a security issue as an intractable process of according with the EU’s stance on the issue. By the same token, if 'Europeanness' is liberated from the preset values and situated in its domestic context, it would be equally misleading to interpret Turkey’s security-centered approach to Cyprus as a non-European feature of Turkish foreign policy, and to view the recurrent Cyprus crises as a deviation from Turkey's European orientation.
FULL TEXT (PDF): 
227-247