Die türkische Dialektik von pro-westlichem Diskurs bei anti-westlicher Haltung und vice versa
Turkish Dialectics in Terms of Pro-Western Discourse and Anti-Western Attitude and Vice Versa

Summary/Abstract: Turkey’s rapprochement to the EU has been accompanied by a serious political turmoil in interior politics. This is due to the fact that the country as a whole and its competing main political camps dispose of very ambiguous relations to “Europe” and “the West”. Whereas the reservations of the Muslim part of the society towards Europe has always gained much attention, a similar distance of the Westernising elite towards Europe came to the knowledge of the European audience only recently. Aiming at cultural Westernisation, the elite relied on an authoritarian political style and regarded Western expectations of a greater political participation as a threat to the stability of the state. The Muslim majority demanded participation and political freedoms but displayed a culturally motivated distance towards Europe. For the first time, the liberalizing reforms of the present Muslim-conservative government open the door for a reconciliation of the cultural and political strains of Turkey’s Europeanisation and democratisation.

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