Historical Legacy as a Condition of EU Impact

I argue that the EU has exerted a strong influence on women’s NGOs in Turkey and provided evidence that strong mobilization of women’s NGOs, collaboration with the state, and effective use of the external networks has led to the strong influence of the EU. My analytical framework suggests that the impact of the EU on women’s NGOs would have been weaker in the absence of these conditions, which are shaped by deeply rooted historical legacies. Legacies have become significant especially in the connective pathway and have influenced Europeanization outcomes of women’s NGOs. As the literature on legacies suggest (See Chapter 2 for more detail), legacies of the past not only constrain the range of current outcomes, but also enable them. Therefore, it is possible that certain aspects and characteristics of the past, especially those resulting from unique experiences of movements, can also function as a way to reinforce Europeanization. This section will show how historical legacies matter for the development of women’s NGOs and the EU impact by invoking a plausibility probe.

In order to do this I consider the experience of women’s NGOs in the Republic of Cyprus as an illustrative case. Cyprus acceded to the EU in 2004, and has access to the framework for gender equality. The impact of the EU on women’s

NGOs appears to be limited. Hadjipavlou and Mertan (2010: 261) argue that “women from all communities had hoped that the entry to the EU would have made a difference… but this has not been the case up till now and it needs to be studied further”.

First, the absence of a dynamic women’s civil society that promotes cooperation among civil society actors and supports policy initiation in favor of women’s issues hinders the EU’s impact. In contrast to Turkey, Cyprus never has had an active women’s movement, which could have mobilized around women’s issues and has been unable to use pre-accession context as an opportunity to promote women’s rights and enhance their visibility. Studies have pointed out the absence of a women’s movement in Cyprus could be explained by multiple historical factors such as colonialism, nationalism and a national problem (Hadijipavlou and Mertan 2010) that have inhibited the development of a women’s movement. These factors are deeply rooted in the history and have functioned as constraining factors for the development of the women’s movement in the island. The limited strength of women’s movement and mobilization on the basis of gender issues during the pre-accession process inhibited EU’s impact on women NGOs in Cyprus. Although civil society space is fragmented and differentiated along their identities in Turkey, women’s NGOs are able to collaborate on various issues. Women’s civil society establishes platforms, campaigns for a common cause, initiates policy proposals and in successful cases are able to amend legislation in relation to the women’s issues. For instance, in Turkey, women’s civil society brought together a strong and diverse women’s movement coalition in favor of reform and induced amendments in legislation. In Turkey, the existence of a vibrant civic space has been a facilitating condition for maximizing the EU impact.

Second, the lack of mechanisms that actively promote state society cooperation and the absence of a strong women’s agency in this network impede the EU’s impact. In 1994, the National Machinery for the Rights of Women was established in Cyprus as a requirement of CEDAW. Unlike Turkey, women’s NGOs have not played active roles under this machinery. In Cyprus, women’s NGOs are organically tied to political parties for material and social support and are refrained from engaging in gender issues (Hadijipavlou and Mertan 2010: 259; Sepos 2008:

143). Women’s NGOs have not been able to develop independent positions both from the state and political parties. In the pre-accession process, the women’s movement

was totally absent from the political arena. During the EU accession process, transposition of the gender equality framework has been explicitly recognized by officials of the National Machinery for Women’s Rights without social involvement of the civil society (Ioannou and Kentas 2011:98). Whereas in Turkey, the women’s movement has collaborated with the National Women’s Machinery to further gender equality policies, yet, at the same time resisted the state policies when it is against their interests. If women’s NGOs could not participate in women’s machinery to promote their rights and push the state to follow gender-sensitive legislation, the Europeanization processes would not have empowered women’s NGOs in Turkey.

Finally, the dearth of transnational links with international NGOs and networks stands as an important barrier that limits the EU impact on women’s NGOs.

In Cyprus, external networks with the women’s movement both in the region and elsewhere remained very limited due to the ethnic conflict that dominated the national agenda (Hadijipavlou and Mertan 2010). In Turkey, women’s NGOs established earlier international ties and pressured the state by using these networks. Such experience with the external networks is likely to ease interaction with European networks. As shown in the previous section, Turkish coordination of the EWL was founded in 2004, and women’s NGOs actively participated in the EWL before Turkey’s accession to the EU. In Cyprus, the Cyprus Women’s Lobby was established in 2008, much later than the accession to the EU. This means that the Europeanization processes are not only triggered by the EU; historical legacies have also played a key role in these processes. If there had not been an effect of historical legacies, the EU impact on women’s NGOs would have been different in both countries.

5.4. Conclusion

The promotion of women’s civil society actors and gender mainstreaming has been at the center of the EU policy towards civil society. The main focus of this chapter has been to examine the ways in which the EU is triggering civil society development with a particular focus on women’s NGOs in Turkey. This chapter demonstrated that the EU has provided opportunities to women’s civil society through funding and enabled organizations to legitimize their actions and policies. More importantly, chapter showed that a stronger degree of Europeanization of women’s

civil society succeeds when the EU converges with the facilitating historical legacies.

Therefore, this chapter highlights the significance of domestic factors such as historical legacies in mediating the EU impact, and the fact that Europeanization is not necessarily constrained by the historical legacies.

CHAPTER 6