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Incompatible Visions of Supra-Nationalism: National Identity in Turkey and the European Union*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2007

Sener Aktürk
Sener Aktürk
Affiliation:
Ph. D. Candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, USA [sakturk@berkeley.edu].
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Abstract

This essay looks at Turkish-EU relations with a specific focus on identity narratives from the Turkish point of view. It outlines Turkey's official national narrative in its Ottoman, Turkic, and Islamic supra-national contexts and compares it with the supranational framework of EU member states' national narratives. According to the official Turkish historiography, Turkey is not part of a European family of nations. Turkey's non-European post-imperial identity is found to be comparable to that of Britain.

L'article examine les relations entre la Turquie et l'Union européenne en se plaçant du point de vue des discours identitaires turcs. Prenant la geste officielle nationale turque avec ses dimensions supranationales ottomane, turque et islamique, il les compare avec le cadre supranational des récits nationaux identitaires des pays de l'UE. Le constat est que, pour l'historiographie officielle turque, la Turquie ne fait pas partie de la famille des nations européennes. L'identité post-impériale et non européenne de la Turquie est comparable à celle de l'Angleterre.

Die Beziehungen zwischen der Türkei und der europäischen Union werden hier aus dem Blickwinkel der türkischen Identitätsdebatte beleuchtet. Die offizielle Version mit ihren überstaatlichen ottomanischen, türkischen und islamischen Dimensionen wird dem überstaatlichen Rahmen der Identitätsthemen der EU-Mitgliedsländer gegenübergestellt. Laut der offiziellen türkischen Geschichtsschreibung gehört die Türkei nicht zur Familie der europäischen Nationen. Die post-imperiale und nicht-europäische Identität der Türkei ähnelt der Englands.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , August 2007 , pp. 347 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 2007

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References

* I thank Christopher Hann, Yuri Slezkine, Edward W. Walker and Nicholas Ziegler for their commentary on earlier drafts of this essay. I thank Jennifer Dixon, Mujeeb R. Khan, Fatima Mojaddedi, and Susanne Wengle for their careful editing and for the substantive changes that they suggested. Robert O. Freedman, Martha Gning, Ron Hassner, Leonid Kil, Evangelos Liaras, Adnan Naseemullah, and Martin Stokes commented on previous drafts of this essay in various conference settings at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and UC Berkeley. The conference presentations were made possible by travel grants from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Institute for European Studies, and the Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post- Soviet Studies, all affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley.

(1) Cohen 2004; Dahlman 2004; Yavuz and Khan 2004; Wallerstein 2004; Teitelbaum and Martin, 2003.

(2) Eurobarometer 65, Spring 2006 (published in July 2006), National Report (Executive Summary): Turkey. Available from [http://ec.europa.eu/public-opinion/archives/eb/eb65/eb65-tr-exec.pdf].

(3) Valery Giscard D'Estaing, “Turkey is not a European country”. Available from [http://aegeantimes.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=854].