'Europe-as-Hegemony' and Discourses in Turkey after 1999: What has 'Europeanization' Got to Do with It?


ALPAN B. Z.

JOURNAL OF BALKAN AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, cilt.16, sa.1, ss.68-85, 2014 (SSCI) identifier identifier

Özet

This paper focuses on the significance of the discourses and the notion of 'hegemony' to understand the process of Europeanization within the Turkish political landscape. By applying the poststructuralist theoretical framework of Laclau and Mouffe to the analysis of the shifting discourses on 'Europe' in Turkey after 1999, the paper identifies the different ways in which the concept has shaped domestic political debates and the political struggle detectable in the utterances of key political elites. I call this phase, 'Europe-as-hegemony'. The overall claim is that a hegemonic approach permits us to see the changing landscape of the Turkish discourse in terms of a political struggle over 'Europe' and, finally, how 'Europe-as-hegemony' vanishes after 2005.