University of Twente Student Theses

Login

The official positions of the AKP and CHP on Turkey's EU Accession Process - A comparative study

Raspe, Franziska (2011) The official positions of the AKP and CHP on Turkey's EU Accession Process - A comparative study.

[img] PDF
3MB
Abstract:The study analyses the positions of the two most important Turkish parties on Turkey’s accession process to the European Union by means of constructing empirically grounded typologies based on an in-depth text interpretation and the grounded theory approach by Strauss (1996). This approach is taken in order to, by means of closely looking at semantics and lines of argumentation, reconstruct the parties’ position from a constructivist perspective. One party from the centre-right with an Islamic orientation, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), as well as the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is a secular party from the centre-left, are the objects of scrutiny. With a detailed analysis of the party programmes and other official documentations of the parties’ positions this study explores where the party stands today with regards to Turkey’s ambition to accede to the EU. The leading research question is: What is the AKP’s and CHP’s position on Turkey’s accession process to the European Union as it is expressed in the official documents of the parties in 2007-2011? It is concluded that the AKP wants to reform Turkey in order to be internationally competitive and reach a respectable place in the international community, rather than to become a member of the European Union. The CHP on the contrary has EU membership as its prime goal and sees cooperation in multilateral organisations such as the EU as the solution to global problems. These findings somewhat contradict the opinion of many scholars, who have stated that the AKP is currently the most supportive of Turkey’s EU accession process, whereas the CHP has slightly turned away from the EU.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:89 political science
Programme:European Studies BSc (56627)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61111
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page