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‘Europe-as-Hegemony’ and Discourses in Turkey after 1999: What has ‘Europeanization’ Got to Do with It?

2014; Routledge; Volume: 16; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19448953.2013.864184

1944-8961

Başak Alpan,

Populism, Right-Wing Movements

AbstractThis paper focuses on the significance of the discourses and the notion of ‘hegemony’ to understand the process of Europeanization within the Turkish political landscape. By applying the poststructuralist theoretical framework of Laclau and Mouffe to the analysis of the shifting discourses on ‘Europe’ in Turkey after 1999, the paper identifies the different ways in which the concept has shaped domestic political debates and the political struggle detectable in the utterances of key political elites. I call this phase, ‘Europe-as-hegemony’. The overall claim is that a hegemonic approach permits us to see the changing landscape of the Turkish discourse in terms of a political struggle over ‘Europe’ and, finally, how ‘Europe-as-hegemony’ vanishes after 2005. AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Thomas Diez, Zeki Sarıgil and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on the earlier versions of this paper.Notes [1] For the most outstanding examples of Europeanization literature, see Maria Cowles, James Caporaso and Thomas Risse (eds), Transforming Europe: Europeanisation and Domestic Change, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2001; Beate Kohler-Koch and Rainer Eising (eds), The Transformation of Governance in the European Union, Routledge, London, 1999; Kevin Featherstone and Claudio Radaelli (eds), The Politics of Europeanisation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003; Frank Schimmelfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier, The Europeanisation of Central and Eastern Europe, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2005; Ulrich Sedelmeier, ‘Europeanisation in new member and candidate states’, Living Reviews in European Governance, 6(1), 2011. [2] Cowles et al., op. cit., p. 3. [3] Tanja Börzel and Thomas Risse, ‘Conceptualising the domestic impact of Europe’, in Kevin Featherstone and Claudio Radaelli (eds), The Politics of Europeanisation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003, p. 59. [4] E.g. Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, op. cit.; Stefan Engert and Heiko Knobel, International Socialization in Europe: European Organizations, Political Conditionality and Democratic Change, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2006; Milada A. Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage and Integration after Communism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005; Sedelmeier, op. cit. [5] Ibid., p. 3. [6] Hakan Samur, ‘The power of discourse in the EU playground’, Journal of European Affairs, 2(2), 2004, p. 31. For examples of social constructivism in European studies, see Jeffrey Checkel, ‘Social construction and integration’, Journal of European Public Policy, 6(4), 1999, pp. 545–560; Thomas Christiansen, Knud Erik Jørgensen and Antje Wiener, ‘The social construction of Europe’, Journal of European Public Policy, 6(4), 1999, pp. 528–544; Steve Smith, ‘Social constructivisms and European studies: a reflectivist critique’, Journal of European Public Policy, 6(4), 1999, pp. 682–691; Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. [7] Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Exploring the nature of the beast: international relations theory and comparative policy analysis meet the European Union’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 34(1), 1996, p. 59. [8] Mark Thatcher, ‘Winners and losers in Europeanisation: reforming the national regulation of telecommunications’, West European Politics, 27(2), March 2004, p. 287. [9] For some good examples, see Tanja Börzel and Thomas Risse, ‘The transformative power of Europe: the European Union and the diffusion of ideas’, KFG Working Paper Series No. 1, May 2009; Tanja Börzel, ‘The transformative power of Europe reloaded: the limits of external Europeanisation’, KFG Working Paper Series No. 11, February 2010; Paolo Graziano, ‘Europeanization and domestic employment policy change: conceptual and methodological background’, Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 24(3), July 2011, pp. 583–605.[10] Claudio Radaelli and Theofanis Exadaktylos, ‘New directions in Europeanisation research’, in Michelle Egan, Neil Nugent and William E. Paterson (eds), Research Agendas in EU Studies: Stalking the Elephant, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009, p. 205.[11] Peter Mair, ‘Political parties and party systems’, in Paolo Graziano and Maarten P. Vink (eds), Europeanisation: New Research Agendas, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, p. 165.[12] Claudio Radaelli and Romain Pasquier, ‘Conceptual issues’, in Paolo Graziano and Maarten P. Vink (eds), Europeanisation: New Research Agendas, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, p. 43.[13] E.g. Muharrem Tünay, ‘The Turkish New Right's attempt at hegemony’, in Atila Eralp, Muharrem Tünay and Birol Yeşilada (eds), The Political and Socioeconomic Transformation of Turkey, Praeger, London, 1993; Adam David Morton, Unravelling Gramsci: Hegemony and Passive Revolution in the Global Political Economy, Pluto Press, London, 2007.[14] Morton, op. cit., p. 78.[15] Emilia Palonen, ‘Political polarisation and populism in contemporary Hungary’, Parliamentary Affairs, 62(2), 2009, pp. 318–334.[16] Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, Verso, London, 1985.[17] Ibid., p. 93.[18] Ibid., p. 96.[19] Ibid., p. 65.[20] Eva Herschinger, ‘Defining the global enemy: hegemony and identity construction in international terrorism discourse’, paper presented at the Inaugural World Conference, Ideology and Discourse Analysis (IDA), Roskilde, Denmark, 8–10 September 2008, p. 10.[21] Aletta J. Norval, ‘Social ambiguity and the crisis of apartheid’, in E. Laclau (ed.), The Making of Political Identities, Verso, London, 1994.[22] Ibid., pp. 115–134.[23] Ibid., p. 121.[24] David Howarth, Aletta J. Norval and Yannis Stavrakakis (eds), Discourse Theory and Political Analysis, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2000, p. 11.[25] Herschinger, op. cit., p. 9.[26] Tünay, op. cit.[27] Chantal Mouffe quoted in Aletta Norval, ‘Trajectories of future research in discourse theory’, in David Howarth, Aletta Norval and Yannis Stavrakakis (eds), Discourse Theory and Political Analysis, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2000, p. 230.[28] E.g. Nico Carpentier and Erik Spinoy, ‘From the political to the cultural’, in Nico Carpentier and Erik Spinoy (eds), Discourse Theory and Cultural Analysis: Media, Arts and Literature, Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ, 2008, pp. 1–26; Alessia Contu, ‘A political answer to questions of struggle’, Ephemera Reviews, 2(2), 2002, pp. 160–174.[29] The main methodological claim of this study is that for any discourse to be hegemonic in the Turkish political setting, it has to relate itself to the privileged signifiers of Turkish politics, namely, the signifiers of ‘democracy’ and ‘security’. In line with the list of questions drafted relating to those signifiers (e.g. Is ‘Europe’ put forward as a ‘threat’ to the Turkish society?/Is ‘Europe’ deemed to be fostering certain particular identities?), the discourses on ‘Europe’ have been traced in the newspapers of Radikal, Zaman and Cumhuriyet and in parliamentary debates in the 1999–2012 period. In sum, 418 newspaper statements and 54 documented parliamentary debates have been used.[30] The coalition government in the 1999–2002 period.[31] By İsmail Cem, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the DSP–ANAP–MHP coalition government between 1999 and 2002, known for his mild and consensual stance vis-à-vis ‘Europe’. Cited in Radikal, 22 December 2001.[32]Radikal, ‘İsmail Cem Patladı’, 5 March 2002.[33]Radikal, ‘Yeni Türkiye Avrupa Yolunda’, 20 August 2002.[34] By Mesut Yılmaz, the Vice-Prime Minister of the DSP–ANAP–MHP coalition government, cited in Radikal, ‘Yılmaz: Yol Ayrımındayız’, 29 May 2002.[35] Quoted in M. Yetkin, ‘Önümüzde Zor Günler Var’, Radikal, 4 October 2005, emphasis added.[36] Quoted in Radikal, ‘Asla Boyun Eğmeyiz’, 15 December 2004. Erdoğan made this speech just before the 17 December 2004 Luxembourg summit, when the European Council decided that EU–Turkey accession negotiations would start on 3 October 2005, and mentioned that whatever had been stipulated by the EU has been fulfilled by Turkey and therefore, if the EU was as multicultural and just as it claimed to be, it should say ‘Yes’ to Turkish EU membership.[37] By using the term ‘apolitical’, I am not undermining the political process behind the consensus building in terms of ‘Europe’ at that period. The claim here is that ‘Europe’ was seen, at least in the way it had been dubbed by the political actors at the time, as a natural project free of any ideological connotation. For a detailed discussion on the political process of the consensus building on ‘Europe’ after 1999, see Ersel Aydınlı and Dov Waxman, ‘A dream become nightmare? Turkey's entry into the European Union’, Current History, November 2001, pp. 381–388; ABGS, Avrupa Birliği yolunda ABGS'nin 10 Yılı [The 10 Years of the General Secreteriat of the European Affairs on the Way to the EU], Ofset Fotomat, Ankara, 2011.[38] Quoted in Radikal, ‘Asla Boyun Eğmeyiz’, 15 December 2004.[39]Radikal, ‘Hayırlı Olsun, Kolay Gelsin’, 7 October 2004.[40] Although it is not an accurate translation grammar-wise, I deem it important to use the literal translation as it had been coined within the debates in the Turkish context. Following Onar, the notion, ‘of-Turkey-ness’ in this context has been offered as opposed to ‘Turkishness’ where the former embraces all sub-identities (read it ethnic identity) and emerges as an upper identity (civil identity). See Nora Onar, ‘Kemalists, Islamists and Liberals: shifting patterns of confrontation and consensus’, Turkish Studies, 8(2), 2007, pp. 273–288.[41] Baskın Oran, ‘AB eşliğinde Kürt Sorunu’, interview with Radikal, 28 May 2004.[42] For further examples of this debate, see Hasip Kaplan, ‘Sorun da Belli, Çözüm de’, Radikal, 27 May 2004; Etyen Mahçupyan, ‘Aleviler Bölücü mü Oldu?’, Zaman, 1 December 2006; Baskın Oran, ‘Türk Üst Kimliği Ülkeyi Bölüyor’, interview with Radikal, 25 October 2004; Kendal Nezan, ‘AB Eşliğinde Kürt sorunu’, interview with Radikal, 2 June 2004; Şerafettin Elçi, ‘Bir Kürt de Cumhurbaşkanı Olacak’, interview with Neşe Düzel, Radikal, 14 June 2004; Seza Reisoğlu, ‘AB Yolunda Azınlık Kavgası’, Radikal, 11 November 2004.[43] PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan—Kurdistan Workers' Party) was involved in terrorist activities in South-eastern Turkey, from August 1984 until 1999, when intense armed struggle lost its momentum, at least for a while. This tension in the region led to the deaths of 30,000 people. The PKK has always been at the centre of the debates on the Kurdish issue, as all political parties and figures with a pro-Kurdish agenda, by default, were charged with sympathizing with the PKK.[44] E.g. Mine Kırıkkanat, ‘Türkiye‘ye Inanmak’, Radikal, 3 December 2004; Kıvanç Ulusoy, ‘Yeni bir “Tanzimat” Gerek’, Radikal, 29 October 2003.[45] Norval argues that exclusive logic positions a particular movement (‘friend’) in opposition to a particular system or elite (‘enemy’); claiming that anti-elitism is a feature of the logic of equivalence. However, within the Turkish context, the crux of the debate on ‘Europe’ was less the antagonistic frontier between the ‘people’ and the elite and the need to annihilate the latter than the emphasis on the all-embracing project of ‘Europe’. In this respect, I argue that the critique of the elite emerged as a part of the inclusive logic within ‘Europe-as-hegemony’. See Norval, ‘Trajectories of future research’, op. cit.[46] Jacques Ranciere, ‘The end of politics’, in On the Shores of Politics, Verso, London, 1995, pp. 11–12.[47] Ümit Özdağ, ‘AKP‘ye Hayır Oyları Artabilir’, interview with Radikal, 10 March 2003. Özdağ was the then head of ASAM (Avrasya Stratejik Araştırmalar Merkezi—Eurasia Strategical Research Centre), who later became a nominee for the Chairmanship of MHP, known for his staunch nationalist outlook.[48] Mehmet Altan, ‘AKP Bu Korkuyla İktidar Olamaz’, interview with Neşe Düzel, Radikal, 16 December 2002. Altan is a Professor of Economics, journalist and a prominent figure in Movement for Europe 2002, which was an ad hoc movement established in January 2002 to pressurize the government to ratify the legal changes necessary to ‘get a date’ from the EU for negotiations at Copenhagen European Council, 12–13 December 2002. The Movement managed to collect approximately 1000 signatures for the acceleration of the reform process from prominent figures from different sectors of the Turkish elite before the Copenhagen European Council.[49] Howarth et al., op. cit., p. 11.[50] E.g. Erol Manisalı, ‘Zaten AB‘nin İçinde Değil miyiz?’, Cumhuriyet, 12 January 2007; Sinan Aygün, ‘Avrupa Teknolojiyi Bizden Aldı’, interview with Neşe Düzel, Radikal, 17 October 2005.[51] Aygün, op. cit.[52] E.g. Vedii Bilget, ‘Kapitalizmin Kaleleri İktidarın Kaleleridir’, Cumhuriyet, 15 December 2006; Ali Sirmen, ‘“Tete de Turc” Olmaya Layık mı Türkiye?’, Cumhuriyet, 9 December 2006; Tuncer Kılınç quoted in Radikal, 26 April 2003.[53] Bedri Baykam was one of the most active members of the ÇYDD (Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği—Association for the Support of Contemporary Life) and ADD (Atatürkçü Düşünce Derneği—Atatürkist Thought Association). Quoted in Radikal, ‘Kızıl Elma Koalisyonu’, 3 August 2003.[54] This point has been made by İlhan Selçuk, a famous Cumhuriyet journalist. For the full statement, see İ. Selçuk, ‘Türk mü Dedin?’, Cumhuriyet, 3 January 2006.[55] Laclau and Mouffe, op. cit., p. 153.[56] See Alex Szczerbiak, ‘Polish public opinion: explaining declining support for EU membership’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 39(1), 2001, pp. 105–122; Piret Ehin, ‘Determinants of public support for EU membership: data from the Baltic countries’, European Journal of Political Research, 40(1), 2001, pp. 31–56; Rachel A. Cichowski, ‘Western dreams, Eastern realities: support for the European Union in Central and Eastern Europe’, Comparative Political Studies, 33(10), 2000, pp. 1243–1278.[57] The so-called ‘EU–Turkey Customs Union Adaptation Protocol’ was signed on 29 July 2005 by Turkey, which meant the extension of the Customs Union to the new 10 members. However, Turkey made a declaration on 29 July 2005 that the extension of Customs Union as to include Cyprus does not amount to any form of recognition of the Republic of Cyprus. The chapters suspended were the Free Movement of Goods, Right of Establishment and Freedom to Provide Services, Financial Services, Agriculture and Rural Development, Fisheries, Transport Policy, Customs Union and External Relations, which were considered to be related to the Customs Union.[58] After Nicolas Sarkozy's election as French President in spring 2007, France started blocking the opening of five negotiation chapters. The blocked chapters were Agriculture and Rural Development, Economic and Monetary Policy, Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments, Financial and Budgetary Provisions and Institutions.[59] In an interview in May 2007, seminal Turkish scholar Şerif Mardin used the concept, ‘neighbourhood pressure’ to denote the communal pressure on secular people's lifestyles. During the 2007 presidential elections, this designation has long been the main reference point of the secularist circles against the AKP policies on the grounds that this neighbourhood pressure is a clear indication of the hidden agenda of the AKP to Islamicize Turkey. See Şerif Mardin, ‘“Mahalle havası” Diye bir Şey var ki AKP‘yi bile Döver’, interview with Ruşen Çakır, Vatan, 20 May 2007.[60] Quoted in Cumhuriyet, ‘Say: Türkiye Rüyalarımız Biraz Öldü’, 15 December 2007.[61]Radikal, ‘Erdoğan'a Büyük Uyarı’, 15 April 2007.[62]New York Times, ‘300,000 protest Islamic hue of Turkish system’, 15 April 2007; also see Nuray Mert, ‘İki Türkiye’, Radikal, 19 April 2007.[63]Radikal, ‘İstanbul İstanbul Olalı Böyle Tören Görmedi, Hrant Dink'i 100 bin Kişi Uğurladı’, 24 January 2007.[64]Radikal, ‘“Vatanseverlik” Yarışındaki Örgütler Emekli Asker Dolu: Al Sana “Sivil” Toplum’, 17 February 2007.[65]Radikal, ‘Hassas Vatandaş Manzaraları’, 29 January 2007.[66]Radikal, ‘Misyoner Katliamı’, 19 April 2007.[67] His speech at Bursa Chamber of Industry and Commerce on 21 April 2007, quoted in Zaman, ‘Erdoğan: Koalisyon Olursa İstikrar Zedelenir’, 22 April 2007.[68] Ferhat Kentel, Levent Köker and Özge Genç, ‘Making of a new constitution in Turkey: monitoring report’, TESEV Democratisation Project, 2012.[69]Agos, ‘CHP Azınlık Cemaatlerinin Diyanet'te Temsil Edilmesini İstedi’, 17 August 2012.Additional informationNotes on contributorsBaşak AlpanBaşak Alpan is an Assistant Professor and a Lecturer in European Politics and Political Sociology at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. Her research interests include European studies, culture and identity dimensions of European integration, discourse theory, European football and the construction of intercultural attitudes through football.Address for correspondence: Department of Political Science and Public Administration/Centre for European Studies, Middle East Technical University, Üniversiteler Mah. Dumlupınar Bulv. No. 1, 06800 Çankaya-Ankara, Turkey. Email: balpan@metu.edu.tr