This article introduces a novel conceptual/analytical framework to Europeanization studies. Its main aims are twofold: first, it problematizes the mainstream usage of the term Europeanization, and the notion of change that it has embraced, and second, it develops a fuller account of the impact of European integration on societies. An analytical distinction is drawn between EU-ization as a formal process of alignment with the EU’s body of law and institutions, and Europeanization as a wider sociopolitical and normative context. The impact of Europeanization in a given society is heavily conditioned by the extent and the ways in which Europe is used as a context by domestic actors. To substantiate its arguments, the article focuses on the Turkish case, where Europeanization as a normative–political context has extensively been implicated in its modernization and nation-building processes as well as in recent domestic debates concerning the country’s identity and future orientation.
This article explores the multilayered characteristics of civil society involvement in Turkey’s Kurdish question. It examines the role and impact of Turkish and Kurdish civil society organizations (CSOs) in the conflict in terms of securitizing, holding and desecuritizing activities. It presents a comprehensive analysis of the identities, strategies and actions of these CSOs, as well as of the political opportunity structure in which they operate, including time-contingent factors, the domestic institutional and sociopolitical environment, and the involvement of external actors such as the EU. Despite increasing civil society involvement, Turkey’s Kurdish question is still strongly shaped by the nature of the Turkish state and the manner in which it has responded to the Kurdish nationalist challenge. Whereas the specificities of the Turkish state have moulded the Kurdish nationalist challenge, the latter — and particularly the actions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — have further fuelled the securitizing discourse of the Turkish state establishment, fundamentally shaping and constraining the environment in which civil society operates.
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