The articles here present a shift away from a narrow EU integration agenda. Turkey’s position vis-à-vis the EU cannot be adequately captured by simplistic notions of conditionality, harmonization and an uncritical interpretation of Europeanization. The argument here is that an EU integration studies agenda will only tell part of the Turkey-EU story. What is required in order to provide a fuller account is a more rounded view of Turkey-EU relations, one which places it in a broader context of European and global transformations. This special thematic issue advances a European studies interpretation of Turkey-EU relations and as such offers a much needed alternative to the dominant interpretations emanating from EU integration studies.

Original Articles

Constructing Turkey Inc.: The Discursive Anatomy of a Domestic and Foreign Policy Agenda

Nora Fisher Onar
pages 463-473

Ombudsmanship and Turkey’s Europeanization in ‘World Society’

Didem Buhari-Gulmez
pages 475-487

Resisting Anamnesis: A Nietzschean Analysis of Turkey’s National History Education

Edward Webb
pages 489-500

A Bakhtinian Approach to EU–Turkey Relations

Johanna Nykänen

pages 501-509

Turkey’s Path to EU Membership: An Historical Institutionalist Perspective

Gulay Icoz
pages 511-521

Kurdish Transnational Politics and Turkey’s Changing Kurdish Policy: The Journey of Kurdish Broadcasting from Europe to Turkey

Bilgin Ayata
pages 523-533

The Post-westernisation of EU–Turkey Relations

Hasan Turunç
pages 535-546

To visit the Journal’s website, please click on the picture below:

Alan Scott is a New Zealand citizen who has lived in Turkey for many years. He is currently teaching in the English Prep School at Okan University in Istanbul. Alan publishes a blog, Turkey File , where he writes about Turkish history, culture and current affairs. Alan is the winner of the first Big Idea Competition with his essay ‘A Melange of Cultures’.

His essay on historical monuments from New Zealand and Turkey (below), runner-up in the Second Big Idea Competition,  has been selected for publication by Changing Turkey in a Changing World.

Preamble

The question calls for a European border monument, so I should briefly explain why I am focussing on four – two of which are far from Europe. In doing so, I have in mind questions of my own: If borders are lines drawn to keep people apart, is their real existence on a map, or in the human mind? Do values connect on the ground, or in the mind? Does the uniting of people take place in a physical location – or in the mind?

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My home these days is in Istanbul, but I come from a country about as far from Turkey as it is possible to get. My  hometown, Auckland, New Zealand, is 17,000 kilometres away. Carry on a little further, you’ll cross the International Dateline into yesterday, and be on your way back. When my father’s ancestors left the old country, Scotland, in June, 1842, they endured a four-month sea voyage. When I board my Airbus 340-600 on 13 January, I’ll be looking at a trip of 31 hours and 20 minutes. I will check out with Turkish Police at Atatürk Airport, and get a going-over from the NZ border people when I arrive in Auckland. In between, I will fly over half the world, mostly at an altitude of around 10,000 metres.

It is self-evident that borders these days are not as straightforward as they used to be. Turkey has an almost 10,000 kilometre-long border on land and sea – but where do customs officers do most of their business? Airports, I guess. New Zealand has 15,000 kilometres of coastline, and no border with another country – yet we are one of the world’s most peripatetic people, constantly crossing international borders, especially to destinations in Europe, where most of us have our roots.

Not many New Zealanders have roots in Turkey. However, a surprisingly large number visit the country each year – many of them on a pilgrimage that has become an annual event towards the end of April. They flock to the town of Çanakkale, attend a solemn dawn parade with politicians and neighbours from Australia, and visit the cemeteries and killing-fields of that long-ago exercise in military futility, the Gallipoli invasion.

The first time I visited that desolate landscape was with a group from the Turkish school where I had begun working as a teacher of English. The date was 18 March, a few weeks before the latter-day Anzacs would arrive, but the day on which Turks commemorate their victory. The highlight for me was ascending to the ridge overlooking the peninsula, known to Turks as Conk Bayırı, and in Anzac legend as Chunuk Bair. This narrow strip of land was the key to the campaign, and the objective of a twelve-day battle in August 1915. Reports tell us that it was the only Allied success of the entire Gallipoli invasion – sad when you consider that a small force of New Zealanders fought their way up and held the ridge for a mere 48 hours, suffering horrendous losses, before being driven off by the Ottoman counter-attack.

The positive thing, from a New Zealand point-of-view is that there, on that ridge of ghosts, stand two memorials. The larger one commemorates the hero of the Ottoman defence, Colonel Mustafa Kemal, who went on to become the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey. Alongside is a second shrine, to the memory of the young men from New Zealand who fought and died on that lonely ridge, so far from home and family. It is this latter monument on which I will focus, and to which we will return.

Seventeen thousand kilometres away, on a hillside near Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, a site chosen for its remarkable similarity to the terrain of Gallipoli, stands another monument, this one to the memory of that same Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). There is no line on any map linking or separating the two countries. The distance between them is as great as possible between two places on planet Earth – yet these two monuments so far apart, represent an interconnectedness, a sharing of history and values, that transcend mere physical distance.

Young men from New Zealand and Australia, loyal citizens of the British Empire, spent a month travelling by ship to Europe, to fight for King and Country in the Great War.  Thousands of them never returned, but left their remains on foreign fields. One might expect that Turks, at least, would harbour some ill-feeling against people who travelled so far with aggressive intent – but it is not so. Inscribed on that monument near Wellington are the magnanimous words of the Turkish leader:

“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives . . . You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours . . . You, the mothers, who sent your sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”

It was in recognition of this great-heartedness, that the government of New Zealand raised a memorial to Atatürk on the ridge above Tarakena Bay[1], and in acknowledgment of the Turkish government’s allowing the building of the NZ shrine at Chunuk Bair – commemorating the 850 Kiwi ‘Johnnies’ who ‘lie in the bosom’ of the Turkish Republic. These two monuments link the hearts and minds of two nations whose birth pangs can be traced to those bloody months on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. The words of a Turkish poet, Necmettin Halil Onan, are inscribed in huge letters on a hillside overlooking the Dardanelle Straits, and the lines could be as true for New Zealand as for Turkey:

Traveler, pause. An era ended                                                                               

Where you heedless tread. Listen

And hear, in the silence of this

Mound, a nation’s beating heart.[2]

But there is more to this connection. A few years ago I was wandering along Raglan Beach, on the West Coast of New Zealand’s North Island, when I chanced upon three carved wooden sculptures, unmistakably Maori: a traditional tattooed male figure, a bird and a dolphin, all silver-grey and weathered by the winds and salt spray sweeping in from two thousand kilometres of one of the world’s wildest seas.

Aotearoa, as the indigenous Maori people call New Zealand, is a lonely, isolated land, bordered on all sides by vast oceans, and, it goes without saying, no contiguous neighbours. Anthropologists tell us that these islands were the last habitable landmass to be populated by humans, who made their landing less than a thousand years ago. Those first arrivals, the Maori, maintained their splendid isolation for perhaps five centuries before Europeans began to arrive from the late 1700s. For the next hundred years, immigrants from Europe faced a journey of four months on a sailing ship. And there we are to this day, descendants of those intrepid pioneers, inhabiting a cluster of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, far from our roots in the British Isles, speaking a language whose closest relations are half a world away. The carved figures are not of European origin, yet they speak eloquently of our isolation, and search for identity.

I have seen a lot of Turkey, but there is a line I have yet to travel – east from the capital Ankara through the Anatolian cities of Sivas, Erzincan and Erzurum, to Kars and the Armenian border. Out there, 1174 kilometres, and a universe away from the European metropolis of Istanbul, lies the town of Manzikert (Malazgirt in Turkish) in the province of Muş. As every Turkish school child will tell you, this was the site of a battle in 1071 CE, when the forces of the Seljuk Turkish Sultan Alparslan defeated the army of the Byzantine Emperor, Romanus Diogenes. His victory opened the way for Turks to sweep into Anatolia, where they remain today – in defiance of the feelings of many Western Europeans, who wish they would return to whence they came.

My fourth monument is there, in that remote East Anatolian town – erected in 1989 to commemorate a long ago battle. It may be debatable whether this edifice is in Europe, but the Turks indisputably are, as out of place with their language and traditions as we white New Zealanders are down there in the South Pacific. It’s a strange world we live in, and sources of conflict are easy to find. The borders we draw, on the ground and in our minds, are often lines of defence. Crossing them to make connections requires imagination and breadth of vision. My four monuments can be seen as unconnected and irrelevant – or as pointers to a new world where we seek the values we share, rather than the differences that divide us.

Venue: Royal Holloway, University of London/Date: 17^th February 2012

  Workshop Programme

11.00 – 11.30 Welcome and introduction to the ‘Many Europes’ workshop by Prof. Chris Rumford

11.30-13.30: Panel 1: Identity, borders & multiculturalism

Chair: Chris Rumford

Speakers:

S. Anne G. Bostancı (Surrey) – EUrope and other Europes

Joanna Cagney (Royal Holloway) – Models of ‘Multiculturalism’: Identifying Difference, Differentiating Identity

Dr. Valentina Kostadinova (Birmingham) – The European Commission and the Configuration of Internal EU Borders: Passive and Active Contributions

Tamás Scheibner (Budapest) – Globalization, National Paradigms, and the Unification of Eastern Europe: The Paradox of Postcolonialism as Applied to Post-Soviet Europe

14.30 – 16.30:Panel 2: Civil society, public sphere & democracy

Chair: Chris Rumford

Speakers:

Cristian Nitoiu (Loughborough) – Fostering Union’s democratic identity through the European Public Sphere

Alistair Brisbourne (Royal Holloway) – Governing Civil Society in the Euro-Mediterranean – The Anna Lindh Foundation and EU Commission post-Arab Uprisings

Sezin Dereci (Bremen) – NGOs in the context of Turkey’s accession to EU: Explaining their divergent patterns of engagement to Turkey’s process of Europeanisation

Didem Buhari-Gulmez (Royal Holloway) EU as a ‘heuristic device’: Three-dimensional Europeanization in Turkey

Abstracts

S. Anne G. Bostancı (University of Surrey) – EUrope and other Europes

What is Europe? What does the term ‘Europe’ mean? I argue that it is meaningless. By this, I do not mean to say that it does not refer to a or many specific things. I mean that the term ‘Europe’ is an ‘empty signifier’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). In and of itself, it does not hold a specific meaning. Instead, it is an umbrella term that draws together a multitude of meanings from history, geography, economics, politics, society and culture and anchors them in a durable yet malleable morphology.

A variety of actors participate in the construction of this morphology; the political classes of various countries, institutions, and groups; scholars; media commentators; ordinary people in a variety of places. However, is it reasonable to assume that they all have the same understanding of the term ‘Europe’? No. This means that there is not one Europe, but many Europes. However, it is fair to say, that some Europes are hegemonic in this discourse. For instance, the European Union has such a prominent position as an actor engaged in the construction of what the term refers to that it can often get away with referring to itself as Europe. Further, it has managed to convince many others, of all the groups engaged in discursively constructing Europe, to adopt, and therefore obscure and naturalise, this unjustified equation.

In view of this fact, it is worthwhile to look in detail at what EUrope, the EU’s version of Europe in its own image, refers to. What traits, what practices, what beliefs, attitudes and ‘repertoires of evaluation’ (Delanty and Rumford 2005) does the Union construct, in its discourses, as European? A variety of ‘coordinative’ and ‘communicative’ discursive forms (Schmidt 2006) may lend themselves to studying this question. However, there is only one type of discourse that is specifically intended by the Union’s institutions to communicate what it is that they see themselves as standing for. These are the public relations brochures, i.e. the text-based political marketing material, produced mainly by the Commission. This paper suggests that in order to understand the relationship between EUrope and the many other Europes that exist, it is first of all necessary to understand what the former notion contains. Then it is necessary to draw attention to the many other Europes that exist outside these institutional(ised) discourses as a means of deconstruction. And finally it is worth analysing whether and in how far there is room for other interpretations of Europe within the EU’s discourses of EUropeanness.

 Joanna Cagney (Royal Holloway) – Models of ‘Multiculturalism: Identifying Difference, Differentiating Identity  

 In Europe there has been a general retreat from state-sponsored multiculturalism (Joppke and Morawski, 2003 in Mitchell 2004). From the French republican model, UK multicultural model and German model of differential exclusion (Parkes, 2008 see also Castles, 1995 and Joppke 2007); in the politics of identity and multicultural recognition the European question is being intensely scrutinised (Amin 2002; Jackson 2008). With an awareness of the differences between centralised countries like Britain and France, and federal Germany mediated by Länder, the ambiguous and even disputed term of ‘multiculturalism’ highlights the complexity and instability of identity in Europe. Through a comparative investigation of the way that the UK and Germany presently define their position on ‘multiculturalism’, as examples of a centralised and decentralised model, this presentation will explore the divergent discourses and political imaginaries on this complex term. It will equally address the distinctiveness of each model to understand its implications for integration and identity-making practices in contemporary Europe.  This will raise further debates around taken for granted political concepts that have become adopted and homogenised under umbrella terms like ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘integration’ , but do not necessarily articulate the everyday, multifaceted expectations and understandings of urban dwellers.  Europe-wide concessions of failure around ‘multicultural’ policy bring questions of the efficacy of integration policies to the fore. Dubious policies designed to address issues of difference and diversity often serve to complicate rather than to elucidate the overall aims and outcomes. This study aims, through engagement with materials produced by policy makers and existing academic literature, to understand the ethoses and practices which shape the identity-making process. Through a comparative study of the similarities and differences of these two distinct models it is hoped that a wider understanding of the multiplicity of identity making processes in Europe will be achieved.

Valentina Kostadinova (Birmingham) – The European Commission and the Configuration of Internal EU Borders: Passive and Active Contributions

The study examines European Commission’s contribution to the configuration of internal EU borders. The focus is on border controls and free movement of TCNs for work purposes. Building on the debate about Commission’s ability to independently influence decision-making outcomes, I develop a theorisation of the discursive techniques that are likely to be used in Commission articulations. The analysis of Commission documents shows that in the fields of common visa and asylum policies, Commission’s contribution has been passive. In distinction, in the fields of intra-Community border controls and free movement for work purposes of highly-skilled TCNs the Commission has managed to play a leadership role and to significantly change the underlying logic on which these policies are based.

Cristian Nitoiu (Loughborough) – Fostering Union’s democratic identity through the European Public Sphere

The paper focuses on the way in which the creation of a coherent European public sphere – where unconstrained communication characterizes the relation between an institution and its corresponding public – could foster the democratic identity on which the EU is predicated upon, and which it seeks to externalize. The European public sphere is taught off as the result of two complementary processes: collective identification and discursive exchange. Both these processes are dynamic in nature and have to be assessed according to their historicity – for example through various social interactions mitigated by the sum of discursive exchange within the EU might eventually transform the latter into a coherent set of discursive practices. In relation to the former mechanism, collective identification, it is worth noting that the emergence of a European public sphere based on a common identity must be seen as indispensable for the normative development of the Union, and thus for the assurance that multi-level governance within its institution takes into account the views of the general public. However, many scholars have underlined the absence not just of a common identity that would transcend the narrowness of national interests, and that even the political will that could forge such a collective identity is no more than rhetorical. Member states and their polities are seen in these studies as being rational egoists who only support common EU approaches when they do not collide with their national interests. These arguments cast doubt over the possibility of a functional European public sphere that could deepen the European democratic culture, and give strength to the endeavor of this paper of exploring the role of the emergence of a coherent public sphere in the fostering of European democratic identity.

Alistair Brisbourne (Royal Holloway) – Governing Civil Society in the Euro-Mediterranean – The Anna Lindh Foundation and EU Commission post-Arab Uprisings  

 The intended purpose of the Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF) is to promote cultural dialogue between Europe and the Arab world within the context of various project areas. The origin of ALF can be found in the social and cultural ‘basket’ of the Barcelona Process and was formalized in its current form (and name) through an Egyptian proposal at a meeting of the Euro-Mediterranean Committee in 2003. The foundation promises an independent, multilateral forum for members of the EMP while relying heavily on the EU Commission in budgetary terms. Since the Arab Uprisings there has been interest from the Commission in formalizing the relationship between official EU policy, specifically the European Neighbourhood Policy, and ALF in order to resolve a current shortcoming of EU policy towards the region; a desire that is reflected in recent ALF documents, and infers a distinct form of institutionalization of socio-cultural issues by extending governance practices both across the domain and through the semblance of civil society – a process of ‘civil societalisation’. The opening section will discuss the creation of ALF by focusing on the influence in EU policy of human rights and democratization discourses. The second section will engage with previous arguments that have been made regarding the significance of ALF in EU policy and situating them within the geopolitical context of the Euro-Mediterranean since the Arab Uprisings. The third section will then engage with the concept of ‘civil societalisation’ and its relevance for the ALF-ENP relationship. The final section will summarize and provide questions for future research.

Sezin Dereci (Bremen) – NGOs in the context of Turkey’s accession to EU: Explaining their divergent patterns of engagement to Turkey’s process of Europeanisation

Europeanization literature has been mostly produced for the EU member states. This literature recently started to consider in what ways and under which circumstances enlargement and the accession process change the identity, the interests, and the behavior of governmental and societal actors. The analysis of Turkish accession to the EU provides the opportunity to test the quality of EU approaches to non-state actors outside EU’s borders. Various participatory mechanisms, capacity building initiatives funded by the EU, general frameworks dictated by the EU to overcome existing policy misfits, and exchanges at the transnational level bring a potential empowerment of non-state actors that will increase their willingness and capacities to contribute to the policy adoption process of an accession state. This research examines the consequences the EU accession process has on interest groups in Turkey, as the accession country is under investigation here. There are three questions that are given particular attention: First, to what extent are they empowered to become ‘carriers’ of Europeanisation?  Second, following from the previous question, do interest groups mobilize as the catalysts for the policy adoption in the accession process or are they detached?   Third, what are the conditions facilitate or constrain their involvement? In this research, civil society is conceptualized as what are called “interest group”. The organizations that I will focus on are organized in the sense of their political interests. There will be distinctions between a) NGOs or public interest groups b) economic/business associations, chambers c) trade unions. The empirical data is drawn from expert interviews conducted with the key representatives from the organizations. This paper will have the focus on the NGO sector of the civil society realm.The results obtained so far indicate that the link between material and political opportunities that the EU might offer and domestic adaptation or mobilization of Turkish interest groups is not reflexive. Their mode of Europeanisation  resonates from both external opportunities (i.e. the influence of the EU) and internal constraints inherent to the respective organizations and their specific policy realms. Apparently, Europeanisation processes have created uneven results for the Turkish civil society politics. Counter-reactions to the European impact are in many forms with various practices, understandings. This study will highlight the fact that Europeanisation is also a process leading to  multiple productions and creative usages of the ‘Europe’ by the civil society actors of the accession states.

Tamás Scheibner (Budapest) – Globalization, National Paradigms, and the Unification of Eastern Europe: The Paradox of Postcolonialism as Applied to Post-Soviet Europe

In the past decades, Postcolonial Studies emerged as one of the most popular new universalizing languages of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that, from the mid-1990s, renewed attempts has been made to the application of the terms ‘postcolonial’ or ‘postcolonialism’ on ‘postcommunist’ societies and cultures. The discourse was established primarily by exiles and scholars from Western universities—often originating from Eastern and Central Europe—with the intention of redefining the region in a theoretical space where Cold War frameworks ceased to function, and of placing the region on the map of multiculturalism and Global Studies. However, most contributions fail to recognize that Eastern and Central European discourses of national self-representation and independence historically have often relied on imagery borrowed from extra-European colonialism. This system of metaphors was already commonly used in the 18th century and has been widely employed since: every epoch created its own version of it and these ideas continue to shape the way local elites understand their country’s role in international politics even today. Arguably, the idea of having been colonized tended to be a major factor in the efforts of national communities to conceive their history as continuous. When it comes to contemporary postcolonial discourses, one can recognize a certain duality already inherent in past discussions about colonial subjugation. On the one hand, these provide a proper set of rhetorical tools for advertising solidarity towards the global community on a universalistic basis. On the other hand, they may well serve particularistic aims by strengthening the cohesion of smaller communities. Postcolonialism, firstly, unifies the Post-Soviet space without regard the great differences of local histories, and, secondly, may well affirm the traditional sense of victimization of East and Central European nations, and fostering nationalism.

Didem Buhari Gulmez (Royal Holloway) – EU as a ‘heuristic device’: Three dimensions of Europeanization in Turkey

 The EU is a ‘heuristic device’, useful in enabling an understanding of a complex phenomenon: the co-existence of ‘multiple Europes’. When one becomes aware that the EU has been objectifying, decontextualizing, or spatio-temporally ‘fixing’ (Biebuyck and Rumford 2011) the idea of Europe, one notices that rather than a single community, Europe refers to a ‘polycentric’, complex, and dynamic system that involves multiple types of actors operating in (at least) three realms: strategic (the realm of interests), normative (the realm of norms), and cognitive (the realm of intellect).

By emphasizing its polycentric character, the paper moves away from three types of approaches to the European system: a unipolar Europe run by ‘Brussels’ or a ‘Franco-German engine’; a bipolar Europe that involves a competition between eastern and western, North/core vs. South/periphery, as well as old vs. new Europe divide; and finally a ‘multi-level’ Europe that assumes a predetermined hierarchy between different national, regional, and institutional actors that operate at various territorial ‘levels’.

Secondly, by advancing the analytical distinction between strategic, normative, and cognitive domains in which the EU represents many Europes, the study aims to introduce a three-dimensional model of Europeanization in Turkey. The mainstream scholarship on Turkey’s Europeanization in particular, and Europeanization in candidate countries in general, overemphasizes the strategic dimension (EU-ization or ‘thin Europeanization’ based on official membership criteria), rarely looks at the normative dimension (‘thick Europeanization’ largely driven by ‘post-material values’), and is almost unaware of the cognitive dimension (“ritualized Europeanization” a term that is inspired by ‘Stanford School on sociological institutionalism’ in order to uncover Turkey’s search for external/global legitimation, and the processes of socio-political redefinition of what was traditionally ‘taken-for-granted’).

After providing detailed accounts of the suggested three dimensions in Turkey’s Europeanization, the paper intends to show that the multiplicity of European actors operating at three different realms affects the EU’s projection of its authority abroad, and paves the way for the trifurcation of the processes that influence society and politics in candidate countries like Turkey. The empirical findings largely derive from expert surveys and elite interviews, conducted with Turkish respondents by the author in 2010 as well as public speeches and parliamentary minutes.

Keynote article: Biebuyck, William & Chris Rumford (2011), “Many Europes: Rethinking multiplicity” European Journal of Social Theory 15(1), 3-20.

Dr. Hakkı Taş teaches at the Department of Political Science at Altın Koza University, Ankara. He was a visiting asistant in research at Yale University in 2007 and received his PhD in Political Science from Bilkent University in 2011. His main research interests are civil-military relations, hegemony and resistance, and modern Turkish politics. He contributed to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Violence and also got published in PS: Political Science and Politics, Muslim Public Affairs Journal, and Political Sphere.

THE REPUBLIC OF PEACE

The Peace Monument on the Swedish-Norwegian Border

Between Norway and Sweden, there is a mythical state. In 1959, newspapers reported the formation of a new country, Morokulien, a combination of the Norwegian and Swedish words for fun, moro and kul respectively (Gatrell, 2012). Also known as “the Republic of Peace,” it was set up on 6-hectare demilitarized zone on the Norwegian-Swedish frontier. It has its own citizens, issues stamps and broadcasts its own TV and radio programmes. What inspired and gave birth to Morokulien is a peace monument around which this new country was also established. The monument was erected much earlier in 1914 on the Norwegian-Swedish border to commemorate 100 year long peace between both countries.

The Historical Background

When the Napoleonic marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was elected in 1810 as the Swedish successor and adopted as Crown Prince Carl Johan, he reoriented Sweden’s foreign policy. Known as “Policy of 1812,” Carl Johan was determined to acquire Norway with the support of Napoleon’s enemies (Barton, 2003: 13). Eventually, he succeeded it. The Treaty of Kiel, signed on January 14, 1814, that ended the hostilities between the parties of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, compelled Denmark to cede all of Norway to the king of Sweden. However, Norway declared its independence. The Norwegians convened a constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll on May 17, 1814, adopted their own constitution and elected Prince Christian Frederik as king. This led to a brief war between Sweden and Norway.  The Convention of Moss, signed after the war on August 14, 1814, formed the basis for the personal union between Sweden and Norway (Scobbie, 2006: 231).

In 1905, the union was unilaterally dissolved by the Norwegian parliament. The union king, Oskar II responded to this situation with preparations for a war. However, there was little he could do to silence the Norwegian opposition. Moreover, the Swedish peace movement called SPAS (Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society) worked hard to avoid a military conflict and succeeded (SPAS, 1989). Finally on October 26, 1905 after negotiations in Karlstad, the peaceful dissolution of the union was formally recognized by Sweden. A demilitarized zone was created on the border. Morokulien lies now on this zone.

The Peace Monument

The Nordic Peace Congress, held in Stockholm in July 1910, decided to build a peace monument on the border at Eda between Sweden and Norway in order to celebrate hundred years of peace between both countries in 1914 (Lee and Forss, 2011: 28). They carefully chose a spot on the demilitarized zone to make the monument visible from the road as well as from the railway. The land was purchased by the SPAS and the Norwegian Peace Act (Eda Commun, 2012: 6). Then, the peace activists started to collect money. In contrast to the Norwegians, many Swedish people did not welcome this idea as the release of Norway was a kind of humiliation for them. Nevertheless, the Swedish peace activists managed to collect 17.000 crowns. Besides, both governments were asked to donate 2.000 crowns. While the Norwegian parliament approved the quest immediately, the Swedish government granted its contribution only after the inauguration of the monument, with 194 votes against 156 (SPAS, 1989). There was still ill-feeling between the two countries.

Many activists worked for free or for a small payment during the construction of the monument. The Norwegian state railway transported the granite blocks without charge. The Swedish Architect Lars Johan Lehming, designed the monument without any compensation and was later fired from his work at the defense bureau for his involvement in the project (SPAS, 1989).

The 18 meter high monument, made of white granite from Idefjorden, was finally inaugurated on August 16, 1914. Some 12,000 people gathered to the celebration along with the Norwegian parliamentary president J. Løvland and the Swedish Bishop von Scheele (Eda Commun, 2012: 6). The peace monument consists of two pillars, one on the Swedish ground and the other Norwegian ground, but on a mutual foundation. Two men stand on top of those pillars and reach each other a friendly hand. On the back of the monument is inscribed: “Henceforth shall war between Scandinavian brothers be impossible” (Morokulien, 2005).

Since its inauguration, the peace monument has become a gathering place for Scandinavians. During the World War II, the monument square was respected by the German soldiers. It was the only place a Norwegian and a Swede could be married (Lee and Forss, 2011: 29). Even today, Scandinavian marriages take place here.

From a Monument Square to the Republic of Peace

The year 1959 was declared the International Refugee Year by the United Nations. The same year, a joint Swedish/Norwegian boradcasting corporation borrowed the monument grounds in order to set up a radio show Över alla gränser (Beyond all Boundaries).  Both Prime Ministers were present at the opening broadcast. After a contest, the name for the area was coined by Lennart Hyland, a popular radio and TV figure, and it has stuck: Morokulia, a combination of the Norwegian and Swedish words for fun. Since then, this site is known as Morokulien (Morokulien, 2005).

The radio show raised some money to buy a house for refugees to stay within this area. In 1964, a refugee family from Hungary moved in, a gas station was built for job and income. A café, an amphitheater, and a post office were also later built (Fredsplatsens Vänner, 2007). Morokulien is still one of the very few places on earth where one can legally post letters with stamps from two countries, or even with a combination of Norwegian and Swedish stamps. Similarwise, the amateur radio station in Morokulien, is the only one with two call signals, Swedish and Norwegian. Lastly, Morokulien hosts the project Grensetjänsten (Border Service) to help people in both countries to find employment. The project involving in professional and coordinated advisory activities aims to deal with the lack of information about the possibilities on both sides (REGBOUR, 2006: 34).

Morokulien has citizens, but no inhabitants. It has 100,000 visitors each year from all around the world. The visitors may symbolically become a citizen of Morokulien and receive a passport at the Information Center. The idea initiated by SPAS is to gather people from all over the world around the concept of peace (Morokulien, 2005). The SPAS has proclaimed Morokulien a “Republic of Peace.”

Morokulien is the world’s first example of cross-border peace park. Now many countries follow the same lines in order to strengthen bilateral peace on their borders (e.g. for the Balkan Peace Park project, see Kennard, 2008). More importantly, both the Peace Monument and Morokulien came into existence by civilian efforts to establish peace between two neighboring countries. Now, almost a century later than its inauguration, the Peace Monument still demonstrates how powerful peace activists can be even without any state support.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barton, Arnold. 2003. Sweden and Visions of Norway – Politics and Culture, 1814-1905. Chicago: Southern Illionis University Press.

Eda Commun. 2012. Eda Tourist Guide 2012. Boras: Kommun Media.

Fredsplatsens Vänner. 2007. The Peace Monument. http://www.fredsmonumentet.com/english. html, accessed on January 17, 2012.

Gatrell, Peter Gatrell, 2011 (January, 12). World Refugee Year, 1959-60 and the history of population displacement. Slavic Research Centre, Hokkaido University.

Kennard, Ann. 2008. “The Balkans Peace Park as a Vehicle for Cultural Survival,” Cultural Production and Negotiation of Borders – The 2008 European Conference of the Association of the Borderland Studies, University of Tromsø

Lee, Sangsoo and Forss, Alec. 2011. Dispute Resolution and Cross-border Cooperation in Northeast Asia: Reflections on the Nordic Experience. Stockholm-Nacka: Institute for Security and Development Policy.

Morokulien. 2005 (September 27). www.morokulien.de, accessed on January 16, 2012.

REGBOUR (Euregios and New Neighbourhood). 2006. Putting Neighborhood into Practice. Joensuu: Pohjois-Karjalan maakuntaliitto.

Scobbie, Irene. 2006. Historical Dictionary of Sweden, 2. Edition. Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.

SPAS (Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society). 1989. The Peace Monument: A Milestone in History. Stockholm: SPAS.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author who retains the copyright.

CHANGING TURKEY TEAM WARMLY THANKS ALL OF THE PARTICIPANTS FOR THEIR VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS AS WELL AS MICHAEL ULIJASZEK-SCOTT (ROYAL HOLLOWAY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON STUDENT IN POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS) WHO KINDLY VOLUNTEERED TO READ THE PIECE FOR OUR READERS. Please find the audio file of the winning essay below:

Dr. Saatçioğlu has MA and PhD degrees on International Relations and Comparative Politics at University of Virginia (2009). She also completed  her Postdoc in KFG Research College’s “The Transformative Power of Europe” project at Free University of Berlin (2010)

Changing Turkey: Could you inform our audience about your research interests and recent projects on Turkey; “Revisiting the Role of Credible EU Membership Conditionality for EU Compliance: The Turkish Case” in particular? What sort of research data was employed in the article and what type of the gap does your article aim to fill in the literature?

Dr. Saatçioğlu: My research interests primarily include EU conditionality and enlargement, external democratization via the EU, European integration, Turkish foreign policy and Turkish-EU relations.

My research in “Revisiting the Role of Credible EU Membership Conditionality for EU Compliance: The Turkish Case” relies on original, quantitative coding analysis and process-tracing. Based on analysing the European Commission’s qualitative, yearly progress reports on Turkey’s EU reform trajectory, I coded Turkey’s compliance with the EU political membership criteria (using a compliance scale I created). This allowed me to measure precisely Turkey’s compliance for the period 2002-2009. I was thus able to observe the specific, changing values and patterns of compliance over the years and then explain these using process-tracing.

The fact that EU candidates’ compliance with EU membership criteria has never been quantified is a crucial gap in the literature that needs to be fulfilled. By measuring Turkish compliance as such, I tried to fill this significant need which characterizes analyses of candidates’ Europeanization.

Another issue that motivated my research for this article is the prevailing assumption in the literature which states that EU compliance is unlikely in the absence of credible EU conditionality. The Turkish case is puzzling in this regard because it is the least likely compliance case considering the low credibility of its conditional membership perspective. Compliance did indeed happen in Turkey despite the EU’s reservations about “absorbing” Turkey as a full member-state and European political controversy about Turkey’s membership. By demonstrating the likelihood of compliance under weakly credible conditionality, my research thus demonstrates that credible conditionality is not a necessary condition of compliance, contrary to the assumptions in the literature.

Changing Turkey: Could you also give information about your future/ forthcoming scholarly projects?

Dr. Saatçioğlu: My forthcoming projects mostly touch upon topics focused on the EU. I have a working, co-authored paper project which is a comparative study of Islamic political actors in Turkey and Albania regarding their support for democracy and European integration, more specifically. I am also working on a separate project which studies Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East in the context of the Arab Spring. In addition, I have working book chapters discussing topics such as the dynamics of Turkey’s historical relations with the EU, and the EU’s democratizing impacts on membership candidates as well as the neighbourhood countries.

Changing Turkey: What are the potential limitations of the existing analyses on Turkish politics and society, in your opinion? Could you suggest any gaps in the literature or any potential pitfalls?

Dr. Saatçioğlu: I think the existing analyses on Turkish politics and society could be enriched by generating more original and sophisticated data drawn from field research and/or supported by quantitative analysis. In general, studies tend to have limitations in terms of methodology and overall theoretical depth which guides the analysis of empirical phenomena. Greater sophistication in these areas is needed in my opinion. It would also be great if Turkey-specific studies’ empirical focus could be expanded by bringing in other country cases, so as to make the overall analysis more comparative and better assess where Turkey stands in relation to other countries, hence reaching more methodologically-sound findings.

Changing Turkey: Could you suggest to our audience any recent academic publications that you have been following about Turkish politics and society?

Dr. Saatçioğlu: I would recommend, among others:

- C. Nas and Y. Ozer (eds.) Turkey and the EU: Processes of Europeanization, Ashgate, forthcoming.

- Special Issue, “From Europeanization to Diffusion”, West European Politics (2012), 35 (1).

- Special Issue, “Turkey and the European Union: Accession and Reform” South European Society and Politics (2011), 16 (2), 16 (3).

- Ertugal, E. (2011) “Institutional Change and Europeanization: Explaining Regional Policy Reform in Turkey”, Policy & Politics 39 (2).

- Borzel, T and D. Soyaltin, “Europeanization in Turkey: Stretching a Concept to its Limits?”, KFG Working Paper, forthcoming.

Institute for Social Sciences of Sakarya University and EURDC (European Union Research and Documentation Center)

April 25-26, 2012 

Sakarya, Turkey

Keynote speaker: Prof. Dr. Knud Erik Jorgensen (Aarhus University, Denmark)

The European Union (EU) is in many crises. The list is long enough to include the most recent economic and financial debt crises, the chronic problems of ‘European Social Model’, new dilemmas of liberty vs. security, the daunting rise of extreme right, various forms of cultural crises such as the social integration of faith-based or ethnic groups in Europe, the Cartoon Crisis and the home-grown Norwegian terror attacks, to name but a few. All these crises pose radical challenges to the idea(l) of the EU in many ways, which are ever more difficult to tackle. Despite such crises, it is soon to write off the EU. The latter still provides a fertile ground not only to ‘make capitalism benign’ but also make more use of its democratic potentials. However, the EU is also in desperate need of good critique. For long, critiques have mainly come from decaying vocations and approaches that were mainly propagating particular visions of economy and polity, whose exemplary act of critique have been ‘fault-finding’ or rush to quick judgments. In order for the crisis of confidence in Euro not to lead to a crisis in the European ideals of democracy, we need both good critiques not ‘withdrawn from praxis’ and solutions to such crises. Following the success of the 1^st Crisis and Critique Conference on the “Transformation of Islamism in Turkey”, the Institute for Social Sciences is pleased to call for papers to these ends. The languages of the conference are English and Turkish. Paper proposals should be around 300 words and include a short-bio of the author(s).

Paper proposals are particularly encouraged to submit their contributions in the following panels and topics in order to identify crises of and critique the EU:

Panel 1: Economic and Financial Crisis: Towards solving the Economic and Sovereign Debt Crisis

Panel 2: The Future of Economic Integration: Beyond Stabilizing Euro

Panel 3: Politics of the EU (Dis)integration: Reinventing Democratic Potentials of Europe after the Extreme Right

Panel 4: Down of Multiculturalism: Overcoming the Crisis and Reinvigorating the promise of La Convivencia

Panel 5: EU and International Relations: The Poverty of EU in World Politics and the Normative dilemmas of defining ‘the Europeans’ vs. the Other(s)

Panel 6: Turkey and EU Relations, Quo Vadis? Rethinking Turkey’s role

Important Dates:

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: 15 March 2012

Announcement of Accepted Abstracts: 01 April 2012

 
Congress Contacts:

E-mail: krizkritik@sakarya.edu.tr 

Website: www.krizkritik.sakarya.edu.tr

Date: July 5th–7th 2012

Venue: Manchester Metropolitan University

EU IN THE WORLD

This panel aims to transcend studies that (naively) tend to treat the EU as an insulated actor that transforms everything it touches into peaceful, stable and democratic subjects. Rather than an academic position, this stance reflects merely a (pan-European) ideological position. Furthermore, the panel goes beyond the rationalist mainstream that heavily focuses upon strategic dimension of EU’s interventions into world politics. In this sense, a limited focus on EU conditionality as the source of the EU’s authority in the world is misleading. Papers dealing with different aspects of the EU’s authority/presence/actorness in the world are warmly welcome. Deadline for sending abstracts to m.d.buhari@rhul.ac.uk and didem.buhari@gmail.com is 20 february 2012.

Proposed Abstract by Didem Buhari-Gulmez (Royal Holloway University of London)

The objectives of this paper are threefold. First, it advances three dimensions of EU’s authority (pragmatic, moral, cognitive), then it discusses what dimensions are under serious challenge (esp. ‘democratic deficit’ debates) and finally suggests how the EU could deal with rising criticisms (what types of legitimacy it needs to restore).

GSA general call for papers

GSA newsletter #1 dec 2011(3)

Important notes:

1- GSA conference will take place in July 5-7, 2012 in Manchester. For details: http://www.globalstudiesassociation.org/11th-gsa-conference-2012/

2. Unfortunately GSA does not provide travel/accommodation funding. (Conference fee to be paid by the participants)

3. political cartoon by Steve Bell, Guardian (22 June 2004).

Since it was formally launched at the European Union (EU)’s June 1993 Copenhagen Summit, EU political conditionality has been central for the liberalization of post-Communist Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) aspiring to EU membership. The 2004 and 2007 enlargements have seen these countries adopt – with varying speed and success – the EU’s Copenhagen democracy criterion (i.e. “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities”) which lies at the core of conditionality.

It is widely acknowledged that conditionality’s success in eliciting compliance from EU applicants largely owes to its credibility for the ruling parties in candidate states. Conditionality is a strategy of “intergovernmental reinforcement by reward”2 a credible EU membership perspective (one that credibly links membership to democratic compliance) is considered key to accession countries’ compliance, which may otherwise not occur.
The necessity of credible conditionality for democratic compliance has been insufficiently tested in the literature. Empirical studies of conditionality’s impacts have generally neglected the alternative hypothesis that EU adjustment can also happen in the absence of a credible membership perspective. Is it possible for candidate governments to comply with the political criteria even when they do not believe that this will guarantee membership? If so, what will motivate such compliance?
This paper addresses these questions by studying Turkey under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP) (2002-2009). Following an initial period marked by a credible membership prospect (2002-2004), AKP faced the EU’s reversal of credible political conditionality due to the Union’s increased emphasis on conditions other than the political criteria (i.e. the EU’s “capacity to absorb” Turkey) on the one hand and increasingly questionable commitment to Turkey’s full membership on the other. Indeed, it could be argued that in the post-2004 period, the credibility of Turkish accession linked to democratization hit record lows and membership became a distant target (even if it were to happen) in the context of the slow-moving, partially deadlocked accession negotiations. Two factors justify a focus on the AKP and more generally, the Turkish case. First, as stated above, the credibility of conditionality has varied under the AKP. This allows us to sufficiently test the importance of this variable for compliance by determining whether the variation before and after 2004 causes parallel changes in the dependent variable. Second, among all EU candidates competing for membership, Turkey is the strongest test case for the EU’s ability to influence domestic reforms when the credibility of the link between these and membership is questionable. In general, political conditionality is least credible in Turkey since the EU’s concerns about absorption capacity and member-state reservations about membership are most intense regarding Turkey. Thus, studying AKP’s fulfillment of the EU criteria allows us to reach generalizable claims about the possibility of compliance under weakly credible conditionality.
The paper seeks to explain AKP’s overall trend of compliance rather than the adoption of specific reforms under the various aspects of the political criteria. Despite the variations in EU credibility, the AKP complied – if not fully – with the EU’s democracy condition by legislating many of the reform measures mentioned in the European Commission’s progress reports. I first analyze the EU’s application of conditionality regarding Turkey to assess its credibility over time. I then introduce original compliance data for a precise quantitative measurement of the dependent variable, which so far lacks in the existing analyses of EU compliance. Last, I argue that the extent to which the AKP believed in conditionality was irrelevant to compliance. Rather, the party’s adoption of political reforms was motivated by political instrumentality. The EU reform agenda promised the AKP electoral benefits and political survival on the domestic political scene, which influenced compliance throughout the period of AKP rule.

Venue: Royal Holloway, Founders building/FW101

Programme

11.00 – 11.30 Welcome and introduction to the ‘Many Europes’ workshop by Chris Rumford

11.30-13.00: Panel 1: Identity, borders & multiculturalism

S. Anne G. Bostancı (Surrey) – EUrope and other Europes

Joanna Cagney (Royal Holloway) – Models of ‘Multiculturalism’: Identifying Difference, Differentiating Identity

Valentina Kostadinova (Birmingham) – The European Commission and the Configuration of Internal EU Borders: Passive and Active Contributions

Chair: Chris Rumford

14.00 – 15.30:Panel 2: Civil society, public sphere & democracy

Cristian Nitoiu (Loughborough) – Fostering Union’s democratic identity through the European Public Sphere

Alistair Brisbourne (Royal Holloway) – Governing Civil Society in the Euro-Mediterranean – The Anna Lindh Foundation and EU Commission post-Arab Uprisings

Sezin Dereci (Bremen) – NGOs in the context of Turkey’s accession to EU: Explaining their divergent patterns of engagement to Turkey’s process of Europeanisation

Chair: Didem Buhari-Gulmez

16.00- 17.30: Panel 3: ‘Hard cases’ & cultural clashes

Tamás Scheibner (Budapest) – Globalization, National Paradigms, and the Unification of Eastern Europe: The Paradox of Postcolonialism as Applied to Post-Soviet Europe

Gozde Yilmaz (Berlin) – Multiplying ever differentiated Europe? The resistance of the EU against Turkish Accession

Didem Buhari-Gulmez (Royal Holloway) EU as a ‘heuristic device’: Three-dimensional Europeanization in Turkey

Chair: Chris Rumford