Discursive reconstruction of civilisational-self: Turkish national identity and the European Union (2002–2017)

Abstract

Turkey's relations with the EU have gradually soured roughly since 2013. Today, Turkey and the EU have an erratic modus vivendi episodically bordering political crises. This study attempts to provide a critical constructivist account of Turkey's foreign policy change towards the EU between 2002 and 2017. This change in state behaviour analysed in relation to the paradigmatic shift in Turkish national identity discourses regarding civilisational self-understanding led by the AKP elites. The article asserts that this transformation in Turkish national self-perception made fluctuations in Turkey's policies towards the EU and gradual deterioration of relations ‘thinkable’ via the medium of national identity discourses. The impact of Turkey's new hegemonic civilisational self-understanding is pursued within the epistemological framework of conceivability. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.