Institutionalist approach on Turkey's Kurds and its relationship with the EU

(Gulay Icoz, Royal Holloway, University of London )

There is a strong tendency in current academic work in arguing that Turkey could not develop strong relations with the European Union (EU) due to its weak democracy and poor human rights records (with particular emphasis on Turkey's treatment of Kurds). And these academics tend to treat Turkey's consistent desire to join the EU and its weak democracy and human rights records as contradicting one another for Turkey continuously failed to bring itself to same level with the other EU member states in these areas of weaknesses. Although this paper agrees with these views, it proposes that we should identify what/why/how shaped level of democracy and standards of human rights in Turkey, and it argues that a rigorous analysis of Turkish/EU relationship could only be made once the key role playing actors are identified.

This paper will be divided into three parts. The first will introduce concepts of path-dependency and unintended consequences, and argue that these two concepts should be used together in analyses of how institutions shape action. The second will show that it was Turkish National Security Council's (NSC) path-dependent recommendations that shaped Turkey's handling of the Kurdish issue, and demonstrate that its poor human rights record and weak democracy were negative unintended consequences of this approach. The last will asses the implications of these on Turkish/EU relations between 1983 and 1997.