in: Imagining Europe in Times of War and CrisesYouth Perceptions from Balkans, Caucasus, and Turkey, ALPAN BAŞAK ZEYNEP,Hoti Afrim, Editor, Springer, Zürich, pp.119-136, 2024
In the field of EU Studies, various academic studies indicate a
prevailing political trend where people tend to become more Eurosceptic
as they age. Yet, there is an increasing level of youth support for
Eurosceptic parties in Europe in the meantime. This chapter examines how
this trend takes place in the periphery of the EU project, specifically
focusing on how young, informed citizens in Türkiye evaluate different
aspects of EU integration. In conducting this examination, the chapter
investigates the dynamics and reasons behind Euroscepticism among the
young generation in Türkiye, which can be characterised as “bottom-up”
Euroscepticism. The dimensions that are referred to in this research are
economics, security, and politics. Adopting the interpretivist
paradigm, this chapter delves into questions surrounding the current
crisis of the EU project, the anticipated problems in Türkiye-EU
relations, and the future of the EU project. To explore the perceptions
of young citizens, the chapter resorts to focus group meetings and
employs purposive sampling as the methodology. The authors carried out
the analysis through manual coding through the first and second readings
and a comparative analysis of the results through a pre-determined
qualitative codebook, marking certain comments, proposals and arguments
on the themes of the LEAP project. Therefore, this chapter aims to
contribute to enhancing young citizens’ knowledge and promotion of EU
integration in the long term while addressing the challenges resulting
from the nature and characteristics of bilateral relations, which, in
this case, Türkiye-EU relations.