Abstract

Turkey has introduced crucial legal reforms since 1999 for satisfying the membership conditions of the European Union (EU). The Turkey-EU relationship has evolved to an unprecedented level with opening of the accession negotiations with Turkey in 2005. The EU anchor is a major factor for understanding the democratization of Turkey since 1999. In this study, I examine the research question "Under which conditions have EU had a positive impact on compliance with liberal democratic norms in Turkey?" I have used the explanations of the external incentives and the social learning models for answering the research question. The analysis of the variables of the two models has been done in two time periods (1999-2002, 2002-2004) and according to three issue areas (human rights, minority rights and civil-military relations). It has been observed through this research that the identification of the Turkish government and the size and credibility of the EU rewards have been the most important factors that influence the compliance. Legitimacy and resonance variables of the social learning model and the size of adoption costs of the external incentives model have failed to explain the compliance. This research has revealed that the impact of the EU is dependent of different domestic and EU level factors. Although I could not reach a definitive conclusion on the validity of the two theoretical models, I have been able to determine which factors are important in explaining the compliance of Turkey with the EU's conditions