The Europeanization of Civil Society in Turkey

Another important area of research which provides information about the relationship between the EU and civil society are the contributions concerned with the EU influence on civil society development in the context of enlargement. These studies explore the relationship between the development and transformation of civil society in Turkey in relation to the European integration.

The literature on the Europeanization of civil society in Turkey has expanded in recent years (Diez et al. 2005; İçduygu 2007; Grigoriadis 2009; Ergun 2010;

Kaliber 2010; İçduygu 2011; Öner 2012; Ketola 2013; Zihnioğlu 2013; Rumelili and Boşnak 2015). Studies have focused on the analysis of different civil society actors (Göksel and Güneş 2005; Rumelili 2005; İçduygu 2011; Rumelili and Boşnak 2015), the impact of the EU on the development of civil society (Diez et al. 2005), the role of Turkish civil society and public opinion in the pre-accession process (Kubicek 2005;

İçduygu 2011), the philosophical underpinning and rationale of the EU’s civil society policy (Ketola 2011; Zihnioğlu 2013), processes (Rumelili and Boşnak 2015) and conditions of the EU influence (İçduygu 2011).

Since the 1999 Helsinki Summit, there has been a positive environment regarding the role of the EU on civil society in Turkish academia. Initially, scholars examined the development of civil society as an instrument of EU democratization (Keyman and İçduygu 2003; Kubicek 2005). For example, Keyman and İçduygu (2003:224) argue that the formal candidacy status of Turkey in 1999 has started to influence the civic sphere where “ …the process of European integration means the emergence of the democratic mode of regulation of the state-society relations in Turkey” and adoption of the EU acquis communitaire led to the transformation of current domestic politics. Accordingly in 2001, the Turkish government announced the National Program and followed a series of reforms to comply with EU legislation.

In a similar vein, studies have underlined the importance of a legal framework to

create a conductive framework for the operation of a civil society (Özbudun and Yazıcı 2004; Bikmen 2005). These reforms- freedoms of association and peaceful assembly- created an enabling environment and induced changes in the operation of a civil society. Therefore, the influence of the EU on civil society has been examined relatively briefly as a part of the broader democratization process in Turkey

Whilst Turkey represents distinct challenge for the EU, it is no longer challenged that the EU has exercised considerable influence over the development of Turkey’s civil society. Our understanding of how the EU’s financial assistance works, under what conditions it is more or less successful in stimulating change, the logic of EU’s civil society policy, and the role of civil society in integration process is now quite developed. The EU influence has been studied both through the normative context of EU enlargement (Kaliber 2012) and the impact of the financial assistance on civil society.

The studies on the Europeanization of civil society have defined civil society in three main ways. Some scholars have included a variety of organizations in their definitions. For example, İçduygu (2011) has defined civil society on the basis of legal status and focused on associations, foundations, public professional organizations and cooperatives in Turkey. Similarly, Zihnioğlu (2013) has identified diverse civil society organizations on the basis of their capacity, working area and ideological lines. Others have defined civil society as particular types of actors such as NGOs (Ketola 2013; Rumelili and Boşnak 2015), and issue areas (Rumelili 2005).

Another group has based their analyses on interviews conducted with an unspecified set of organizations (Ergun 2010; Kuzmanovic 2010). Therefore, there are different understandings of civil society.

There are three main perspectives of Europeanization that prevail in the literature. First, Europeanization is defined as EU-driven processes (Göksel and Güneş 2005; Rumelili 2005; Öner 2012; Rumelili and Boşnak 2015). For example, Rumelili and Boşnak (2015:131) define Europeanization of civil society in Turkey as

“processes that enhance the autonomy and independence of NGOs from the state and develop the NGOs’ institutional capacities and networks in a way that enables their effective contribution to policymaking in Turkey and in Europe”. This definition of Europeanization emphasizes the different processes. Second, Europeanization is perceived as a bottom-up process where civil society contributes to the Europeanization process. For instance, Kubicek (2005) shows how civil society has

played an instrumental role in advancing the political reform process in Turkey.

Third, Europeanization is understood as a more interactive process where cooperation between domestic civil society, international partners, and the state are key constitutive elements that characterize the Europeanization of civil society (Ergun 2010: 511). The first perspective of Europeanization that focuses on multiple processes and the third perspective that tries to understand the interactions that are taking place between the EU and civil society resonate most closely with the approach adopted in this thesis.

In analyzing the EU influence on civil society, scholars have shown that the EU has exercised considerable power over the civil society development in Turkey but they differ in outcomes of the EU impact. There is broad consensus that, through conditionality, the EU has imposed a change in the domestic legal framework governing the operation of civil society in Turkey (Göksel and Güneş 2005; Rumelili 2005; Ergun 2010; Öner 2010; İçduygu 2011; Ketola 2013; Rumelili and Boşnak 2015). The new law on Associations and Foundations has created a more conductive environment in Turkey. Studies have discussed EU financial assistance and consequences of assistance to civil society (Göksel and Güneş 2005; Rumelili 2005;

Ergun 2010; Öner 2010; Rumelili and Boşnak 2015). In this context, the EU has shaped their agendas according to EU priorities, and diffused a “project culture”, professionalism and standardization in their activities. The EU has also legitimized the activities of civil society in Turkey (Diez, et al. 2005; Rumelili 2005; Kaliber 2010; 2013). For example, Rumelili (2005) argues that civil society in Turkey contributed to the deepening of Greek-Turkish cooperation by using the EU as a symbol of legitimization. The EU has fostered networks both between Turkish NGOs and their counterparts in other European countries and between civil society organizations and policymakers in Turkey (Ergun 2010; Rumelili and Boşnak 2015).

The networks formed between Turkish and European organizations have provided an opportunity to exchange experiences and knowledge (Ergun 2010) and project issues into the European agenda. The networks formed between NGOs and policymakers in Turkey, on the other hand, have strengthened the role of the former in policymaking and fostered cooperation and partnership between civil society and the state (Rumelili and Boşnak 2015).

Thus, the existing debates on the EU impact on civil society development shows that civil society has been transformed in a variety of ways in Turkey.

Moreover, the literature on the Europeanization of civil society in Turkey provides a comprehensive account of the main transformations of civil society that occur as a result of the EU pre-accession process. The major shortcoming of the current studies is that they tend to end up providing a general and one-sided account of the relationship between civil society and EU pre-accession process and neglects the role of domestic factors. This prevents us to fully capture a comprehensive account of the current developments and instead present a distorted understanding of the relationship.

Furthermore, an in-depth examination of the EU impact through an analysis of different issue-areas and an explanation of the impact has also been absent in the literature. This thesis provides a much more comprehensive understanding of the EU impact on civil society development in Turkey through highlighting the simultaneous relationships and linkages between the domestic historical context and the process of integration. It also presents a substantial historical analysis of prominent civil society organizations- women, environmental and human rights-in Turkey.

To conclude this section, the existing literature on the Europeanization of civil society both in the context of CEE and Turkey reveal that the EU’s impact is

“transforming”, “strengthening” or “weakening” civil society. As discussed elsewhere, the literature has been characterized by multiple and sometimes an incompatible understanding of civil society, Europeanization processes, and its outcomes (Rumelili and Boşnak 2015). The comprehensive review of the literature demonstrates that although studies have adopted various perspectives and reached diverse conclusions, the impact of the EU has mainly been studied through top-down and bottom-up approaches. The top-down approaches to civil society have analyzed the ways in which EU pressure, mainly through civil society funding, changes the structure of civil society in line with European practices. It therefore concentrates on

“uni-directional” changes and investigates the implementation of European civil society policy at the domestic level. The bottom-up approaches to civil society have examined how domestic civil society actors influence the EU. However, both approaches have failed to explain the role of domestic factors in understanding the relationship between the EU and civil society. The exclusive emphasis on top-down and bottom-up approaches undermines the explanatory power of domestic factors.

More recently, a new and expanding body of research has moved beyond the top-down and bottom-up controversy and explains how domestic factors mattered for

Europeanization studies (Alpan and Diez 2014 and Aydın-Düzgit and Kaliber 2016).

This thesis has not focused on the EU impact as a one-way process. The Europeanization of civil society has been defined as an interactive process, where domestic civil society actors together with EU interactively mold Europeanization outcomes. In this context, it supports the contention that domestic factors play an important role in Europeanization processes. Yet, my findings emphasize that domestic factors are embedded in an historical context and should not be seen as separate from each other. Therefore, the following sections will highlight the importance of a legacy-based approach to Europeanization that is responsive to the historical context. By focusing on domestic factors and integrating the historical legacies into the analysis to explain the Europeanization of civil society, this thesis explores how legacies have shaped the outcomes of the EU impact.