Assessing the Europeanisation of Turkey domestic politics : To what extent has candidate status transformed the military control over civilian rule in Turkey ?

The relationship between the European Union (EU) and Turkey can go back to 1963, the Ankara Agreement, aiming the accession of Turkey to the European Economic Community. For more than two decades after 1963, Turkish political life has been very unstable and interrupted with military interventions. In 1987, Turkey applied for the full EU membership and a candidacy status was granted to her in 1999, in Helsinki Summit. With candidacy status, Turkey has to improve the functioning of its domestic political and democratic structure to become eligible for full membership. This article seeks to assess the impact of EU on Turkish domestic politics with specific focus on the civil-military relations after Turkey gained candidate status. The theory of top-down Europeanisation is employed to assess EU-level pressure on domestic political and democratic structure of Turkey. Since Turkey is a candidate country, this pressure on Turkey emerges through EU conditionality policy-tool which has become quite important after the Copenhagen process in 1993.


INTRODUCTION
As from 1980s (notably after signing of the Single European Act in 1986), the EU has started to act not only as an economic power but also as a political power and export its political rules to individual countries.In order to provide an in-depth analysis of the EU's effects on individual countries' domestic politics, the scholars have introduced the top-down Europeanisation theory.Indeed, the theory was applied to EU member states at the first step.After the end of the Cold War (1989), prospect of application of post-communist Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) to the EU for membership has paired with the EU's concern about candidates' capability of complying with the EU rules.The EU declared the rules called Copenhagen Criteria that candidates had to meet before the opening of the Accession Negotiations in European Council in Copenhagen, 1993.The EU would measure the success *Corresponding author.E-mail: bilge.oney@emu.edu.tr. of candidates to meet these rules by employing effective conditionality.Hence, Europeanisation scholars have started to analyse the effects of the conditionality by applying the theory of top-down Europeanisation to understand changes in candidates' domestic structures.This study first concentrates on the analysis of the Europeanisation theory and to examine the efficiency of EU conditionality after 1993.The second part of the study discusses the incompatibilities between the EU rules and procedures with Turkish domestic politics.It is argued that the Turkish military is not ready to transform itself into a modern military as in Western democracies, because of its own political understanding and political sensitivities.After the creation of modern Turkey by General Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Turkish army has assumed the role of protecting the unity, secularity and continuity of the state and being the guardians of Atatürk principles.They see this as their main mission.Consequently, the military developed an interventionist political philosophy.Since then, it has been involved in Turkish politics and affected the institutional nature of the state by having constitutional guarantees to maintain its influence.
Further discussion seeks to assess the role of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) in reforms after they came to power in 2002.JDP has been a significant component in the Europeanisation process of Turkish domestic politics and played a key role in implementation of reforms.The party has transformed itself within a successful EU agenda and discourse and aimed to function as a balance between the strict state bureaucracy and the pro-European Turkish society in Turkey.However, although Turkey is accepted as having fulfilled the Copenhagen political criteria in 2004, Turkish military still has influence in domestic politics.

EUROPEANISATION, EU CONDITIONALITY AND THE COPENHAGEN CRITERIA
Europeanisation is related to the 'feedback process of European integration'.EU-level practices (all decisions, policy making processes and directives) affect domestic structures in several ways and top-down Europeanisation cannot arise without Europe (Risse et al., 2000).A cause is needed to force countries to place the EU rules in their domestic structure.Scholars commonly agree that this cause is the 'pressure' that comes from the EU-level.Domestic procedures must be 'somewhat uncomfortable' for the EU to put pressure on them for the domestic alteration (Radaelli, 2006).Academics have introduced the term 'goodness of fit' to refer to the 'congruence' (degree of compatibility) between domestic and EU-level processes.The term 'misfit' is used to refer incomepatibilities between two levels of procedures (Börzel, 2005).The EU puts higher pressure if the compatibility between the EU and domestic 'processes, policies, and institutions' is low (Börzel and Risse, 2000) High EU pressure emerges as high adaptational pressure on individual countries.
After the required pressure is formed, the individual states become ready to transpose the EU rules.In order to find out what is Europeanised or what must be the subject of the domestic change, concept of 'dimensions of domestic change' is significant, which is defined as 'the domains where the effects of Europeanisation are supposed to materialise' by Radaelli (2003).Börzel and Risse developed a three-fold distinction to indicate 'dimensions of domestic change': 'policies', 'politics' and 'policy'.'Policies' include all policy decisions that Union take, as well as all directions and regulations in Community legislation (acquis communautaire).Member states have to transpose all of these in their domestic legislation.'Politics' include domestic processes such as electoral and party politics, political contestation, political disengagement and aggregation.'Policy' refers to the formal and informal institutions that are formed by the relationship between executive and legislature, regulatory Oney and Halilsoy 8833 structures, state traditions and judicial structures (Börzel and Risse, 2000).Risse et al. (2000) focuses on 'political institutionalism' in order to identify formal and informal institutions.'Political institutionalism' encompasses the system of formal and informal rules at the national level; formal institutions are organisations with 'written norms and procedures'.Informal institutions are 'understandings' of organisational logic, such as 'organisational routines and cultures' (Risse et al., 2003).Radaelli identifies political legitimacy, identities, norms and values, discourses, state traditions (understanding of governance), policy paradigms, frames and narratives within a framework of 'cognitive and normative structures' (Radaelli, 2003).
Top-down Europeanisation can be considered as a process instead of an 'end-state'.The process both indicates whether individual countries' politics have become europeanised and explain 'what goes inside the process' (Radaelli, 2006).Hence, Radaelli's definition of Europeanisation can be accepted as the most determinative and the most inclusive in terms of dimensions of domestic change.
Europeanisation is a 'process of constructing, diffusion and institutionalisation of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, ways of doing things and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the making of EU decisions and then incorporated in the logic of domestic discourses, identities, political structures and public policies' (Radaelli, 2003).
EU employed the conditionality to form the required pressure for the domestic change in the candidate states.EU conditionality, basically are the policy tools of the EU that refer to the use of conditions which are set by the organisation in order to define whether a candidate is eligible for the EU membership.Before the Eastern Enlargements of 2004/2007, accepting new members was an 'unsophisticated process' without a technical procedure (Barnes and Barnes, 2010).The enlargement process was governed by article 237 of Treaty of European Economic Community (EEC), which gave the authority of enlargement decision to the Council.
After 1989, EU had to declare apparent membership require-ments because of the prospect of large number of post-communist CEECs to become members of the Union (Hillion, 2002).Copenhagen declared the conditions as 'stable institutions that guarantee democracy, a functioning and competitive market economy and the ability to assume the obligations of membership' (Euro-pean Council, 1993).The first and second conditions are Copenhagen Political Criteria and Economic Criteria respectively.Third condition refers to the ability to transpose the common EU law (acquis communautaire).Turkey was given candidacy status in 1999 and Turkey would be subject to the same 'conditionality regime' with the CEECs (Schimmelfennig et al., 2003).Indeed, other countries in earlier enlargements downloaded EU-level practices before the accession, but not as systemically as in Eastern Enlargement.In this respect, some mechanisms such as monitoring and gatekeeping used by the EU are useful to explore formation of Copenhagen political criteria as a 'remarkable comeback in the context of the present enlargements' (Hillion, 2002).After 1993, EU Commission started to monitor the domestic improvements in candidate countries.First Report was declared in 1997 for measuring the progress in CEECs' domestic procedures.The Commission's Regular Reports on Turkey's progress towards accession between the period 1998 and 2005 were parts of this process.
With regard to the gate-keeping mechanism, EU was able to prevent candidacies' access to upper stages in the accession processes such as starting accession negotiations or granting membership until they meet with the EU rules.A case in point has been the rule that candidates have to meet with Copenhagen criteria before the opening of accession negotiations which means the transposition of the acquis communautaire.Copenhagen was established as a 'pre-Copenhagen tradition of giving priority to the state of democracy in the candidate countries' during the accession process.In 1995 Madrid European Council, EU made an apparent statement that each individual candidate has to meet with Copenhagen economic and political criteria before the initiation of bilateral accession negotiations (European Council, 1995).Sweden, Finland and Austria only completed completion of internal market and transposition of some part of acquis to become members in 1995.Moreover, Greece implemented acquis after accession in 1981 (Vachudova, 2005).To conclude, EU played a 'club owner' role and employed an effective conditionality starting with 1993 Copenhagen Council (Grabbe, 2002).
Related to above arguments, the 'level of scrutiny' of the rule of law and democracy has changed after the Copenhagen process.Several documents indicates that democratic 'constitutional guarantees' without practical implementation are not sufficient any more for candidates in order to be met with conditions.1998 Composite Paper declares that the Union is 'looking at the way democracy functions in practice, instead of relying on formal descriptions of the political institutions' (European Commission, 1998).
Pressure of conditionality must combine with some facilitating factors (called mediating factors) in order to end with successful compliance with the EU rules.Different individual countries have differentiated domestic structures, therefore, transposition and implementation of the EU rules differs from one country to another according to existence of differentiated mediating factors.Many scholars link Europeanisation and new institutionalism to examine the mediating factors which facilitate the domestic change in candidate countries' domestic procedures.In the 1990s, a theoretical debate has emerged between the theories of rationalist institutionalism and constructivist (sociological) institutionalism.Former follows the 'logic of consequences' and emphasis the rational, 'goal-seeking' logic of the domestic actors under changed conditions.These conditions emerge as a consequence of being subject to Europeanisation process (Pollack, 2007).The latter theory follows the 'logic of appropriateness' and emphasises the socialisation process of domestic actors in a European context.Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier set forth the most determinative framework by analysing the effects of conditionality compared to other mechanisms (such as socialisation) in the Europeanisation process of CEECs (Pollack, 2007).Article follows the logic that both two branches of the institutionalism offer clarifications of different phases of domestic alteration, because rational-calculus minded actors and socialisation processes are not mutually exclusive.Candidates' 'rule adoption' is the dependent variable of Sedelmeier and Schimmelfennig's analysis.As long as all these rules are involved in 'EU governance', these models are named as 'explanatory models of EU governance': 'External incentive model' and 'social learning model' (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004).
The 'external incentives model' is derived from the logic of consequences.The model is EU-driven as the EU set its rules as conditions through conditionality and offers rewards to candidates if they comply with these conditions.Otherwise, the EU withholds its rewards.EU promise rewards such as financial assistance or accession to any stage of membership process (fulfilling Copenhagen criteria or opening accession negotiations) in order to transform candidates.Rational actors make cost-benefit calculations before they take any action in the aim of domestic change and seek to maximise their utility.Candidate country can be affected by the EU in two ways: directly through 'intergovernmental bargaining power' and indirectly through the 'differential empowerment of domestic actors'.In the former case, the EU enforces the adoption of its rules.The EU benefits from several mechanisms such as Commission Reports in order to make credible warning about the threat that will be not accession unless candidates meet with its rules.In the latter case, EU changes the opportunity of domestic structures 'in favour of domestic actors with independent incentives to adapt EU rule'.Rational actors comply with EU rules if benefits (EU's rewards) exceed their costs (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004).
Candidates change their rule adoption momentum according to 'the credibility of conditional promises'.If the credibility of the promises increases, the rule adoption increases parallel to it.Secondly, 'the likelihood of rule adoption increases with the size and speed of rewards'.Therefore, gaining full-membership can be assumed as a more effective incentive for rule adoption than any assistance or partnership promise (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004).Finally, rule adoption can be related to other domestic factors, 'adoption costs and veto players'.Rule adoption decreases if the number of 'veto players incurring net adoption cost from compliance' increases (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004).In contrast, social learning model is not EU-driven, it is candidate-driven.The domestic change is not entirely related to the given EU norms that one being downloaded.It emphasise the identification of the candidates with the EU.Some concepts such as deliberation, discourses, norms, persuasion, identity, and socialisation, are involved in the discussion of Europeanisation process with the formation of sociological institutionalism.Rule adoption of the candidates increases with the 'identification of the target government and society' with the EU (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004).
The factor which is the most significant for Turkey case is the use of political discourse.A common use of Europeanisation in Turkey politics has been the use of 'EU discourse' parallel to Westernisation principle of modern Republic.Discourse plays the key roles such as helping to create 'an opening to policy change by altering actors' perceptions of the policy problems, policy legacies and fit, influencing their preferences, and, thereby, enhancing their political institutional capacity to change' (Schmidt and Radaelli, 2004).It helps to set forth the distinction between those who think domestic structures are compatible with the European constraints and those who consider that the fit between the EU and domestic structure is poor and reforms are needed (Radaelli, 2006).The EU provides the context which discourses are shaped in this framework.Discourse enhances the capacity of domestic actors who criticise the absolute domestic status quo conditions and respond to EU requirements by an approach of domestic change (Schmidt, 2009).All of these components of Europeanisation mechanism will be employed in this article's case study of Turkey in further discussions.
Interpretation of the Copenhagen Political Criteria allows us to identify four components within the text of condition: the rule of law, democracy, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.EU Commission had a tendency to monitor these procedures as a separate chapter (Civil-Military Relations) under the title of the rule of law and democracy.Therefore, the principle of Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF) will be examined instead of a further exploration of the other branches of the rule of law and democracy issue.EU and NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) have formulated the DCAF as a political precondition to be fulfilled by the CEECs before the accession.DCAF entails structural changes in the organisation of civilmilitary relations in order to reduce military control on civilian governments 'in line with EU standards' (Cizre, 2004).It should be noted that these criteria are applied as case-by case basis and so will differ from country to country.

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In general, DCAF refers to the 'norms and standards governing the relationship between the armed forces and society, whereby the armed forces are subordinated to democratically-elected authorities and subject to the oversight of the judiciary as well as the media and civil society organisations' in general.Key features of an effective functioning of DCAF are civilian control, noninterference in domestic politics, ideological neutrality and minimal role in the national economy.The military's missions, composition, budget and procurement policies should be under the civilian control.Civilian leadership should define the military policy, but the military 'enjoys substantial operational autonomy in determining which operations are required to achieve the policy objectives defined by the civilian authority'.Neither the military as an institution nor individual military leaders should attempt to influence domestic politics.In addition, the military should not 'endorse any particular ideology or ethos beyond that of allegiance to the country'.Finally, military can be the largest national employer in defence-related economic sectors.However, this situation should not be valid for the civilian industrial sector (DCAF Backgrounder, 2008).

MISFIT BETWEEN TURKEY AND THE EU RULES AND THE JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY AS A NEW ACTOR FOR THE EUROPEANISATION OF TURKEY DOMESTIC POLITICS
The Turkish military exercises a high influence in Turkish domestic politics because it sets up its main mission as protecting the state.Further research on the top-down foundation process of the modern Republic by the state elites and analysis of the afterwards period by considering the brief political and social history of the Turkish politics and the role of the Turkish military within this framework helps us to establish a greater degree of accuracy on this matter.Indeed, this problem in Turkish domestic politics seems like a 'paradox'.The Turkish military is the institution that always favours Westernisation parallel to the principles of Atatürk, the founder of the modern Republic of Turkey, which himself was a General (Faucompret and Konings, 2008).However, if it is considered that the Turkish military has been classified among 'the political armies of the world', the EU Commission's anxiety about the military seems to be justified (Güney and Karatekelio lu, 2005).
In 1923, Atatürk expected to constitute a national identity for Turkey which would be the 'mirror image' of the transethnic Ottoman identity.The Ottoman Empire was held together by the 'faith of universal Islam', but the Turkish Republic would be held together by 'unconditional faith in the nation'.Secularism would be one of the main principles of the official ideology (Kemalism).Radical reforms containing Islam were established by Atatürk and his political party, Republican People's Party (RPP) which maintained single party rule until 1946 and new Republic's state elites.However, these groups underestimated the fact that new Turkey's society was formed by the same people that lived under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.State elite achieved to prevent 'official Islam' with the abolition of Islamic legacy, but majority of the population of Turkey was Muslim.Similarly, the ethnic differences would maintain their existence in new Turkey's society.Hence, this top-down process upset 'traditional lifestyles' and created a dispute in Turkish society between state elites and counterofficial features, instead of 'coopting' them (Kotsovilis, 2009).
The Turkish military incorporated itself into a Republican alliance with state elites, so anything which is seen as a threat to the state has been approached by Republican alliance with zero tolerance.For Atatürk, sovereignty would belong to the people without any conditions in new democratic Republic, but state elites could better perceive the interest of the people than themselves.The Ottoman Empire's characteristic of 'benevolent father state' persisted in modern Turkey (Grigoriadis, 2009).Özbudun describes the Turkish state tradition as 'strong, centralised and highly bureaucratic' (Özbudun, 1996).
In this respect, if the political culture is defined as a 'set of citizens' orientations toward political objects based on their knowledge, beliefs, emotions and opinions' by following Grogiriadis's definition, Turkey's political culture cannot be seen as 'participant', a characteristic of Western European liberal democracies.In participant political culture, citizens are oriented in the system as a whole.Popular participation is at the heart of the political culture.Turkey can be seen as 'subject political culture' because it shares a common characteristic with this kind of political culture, which is the absence of 'orientations toward the self as an active participant'.According to strict state tradition understanding in Turkey, state is more important than any individual interest and any government (Grigoriadis, 2009).
Turkish military behaves as 'armed guardians' of secular, Turkish democracy, therefore, the protector of the ideology of Kemalism.However, such a high political profile is not typical of Western democracies.In order not to be intervenionist, 'militaries should be professionally strong against external threats, but politically weak with regard to internal public affairs' (Jenkins, 2007).The military's role is set in the Internal Service Law, Article 35:'The duty of the Turkish role is to protect and preserve the Turkish homeland and the Turkish Republic as defined in the Constitution' (Turkish Internal Service Law, 1935).Article 2 of the Constitution defines the main principles of the Republic as 'the Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law... loyal to the nationalism of Atatürk, and based on the fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble' (Turkish Constitution,1982).
With the redefinition of the 'national security concept', military's expanded autonomy from civilian actors emerged as their main instrument in the aim of justifying their concentration of power in domestic politics.'Internal political discord' that was established with the foundation has been interpreted as a language of 'internal security threats' (Güney and Karatekelio lu, 2005).Consequently, the military embedded in state elites is ready to intervene in politics by seizing its power if it notices any threat to secular-democratic order of the state.Nevertheless, it is questionable whether Article 35 of the Internal Service Law (which was formed in 1935 under the single-party government of RPP) gives the right of removing an elected government which is perceived as violating the principles accepted in Constitution.According to state elites and the military, there is an 'identifiable national interest' that is above partisan politics (Turan, 2007).
The first response from the military to political elites was the coup of May 27, 1960.According to Turkish military, Turkish internal politics was in a chaos and economic situations were deteriorating as well.The Turkish military that was supported by the state elites violently interrupted the DP government regime.Military took the authority in the country for a year, until 1961.DP regime has attempted to restrict the practice of human rights in the country and it was obvious that DP regime would be ended by a popular mobilisation or by an attempt from the opposition RPP.Undoubtedly, one of these ways would be more democratic than a military intervention.
Unsurprisingly, political parties have been shaped in this framework.The RPP has represented closer ties with the state elites historically.It was the first single party that was 'associated with the founding of the Republic and the westernizing reforms of Atatürk'.Indeed, party adopted a socio-economic approach in 1960s in order to maximise its voter support.However, it represented the 'ideologically orientated position of a statist-nationalist' kind in general.Other parties that emphasise social interests has always been under pressure of the military and the state elites.Ironically, even the RPP members have come to feel themselves as target of the hostile military interventions during the 1960s and 1970s.The RPP was banned with all other political parties after the 1980 military coup (Turan, 2007).
The new Constitution was formed after the Coup expanded human rights protection.However, it also included some institutions that would exist as legalconstitutional guarantees of military's power concentration, such as the NSC.Secondly, the 1960 Coup 'initiated a vicious circle of military coup illustrating the deadlock that Turkey's democratisation process had entered' (Grigoriadis, 2009).There were general elections in 1961 and military leaders left the political area to elected politicians, but the parties banned by military judiciary were not allowed to participate in elections.Hence, a multiparty democratic system was established by military leaders and state elites.
The Turkish military has intervened in politics twice in 19 years after 1961.On 12 March, 1971, the military declared a memorandum which forced government to abrogate itself and on 12 September, 1980, the military took over the power from civilian government.Military would leave government in 1983 after the formation of so called 1982 'post-Coup' Constitution.After 1999, EU's granting of membership, 'post-Coup' constitution is targeted by both the EU and pro-European Turkish elites (Faucompret and Konings, 2008).Article 118 of 1982 post-coup Constitution defines the functioning and composition of the National Security Council.Indeed, resolutions of the institution are not formally binding on government, but they always influenced governments' decisions in political life.The NSC was formed in 1961 and was strengthened by 1982 Constitution (Turkish Constitution, 1982).The NCS and its military members played the key role in all martial periods of Turkish political life after its constitution (1971/1972, 1980/1983) (Sözen and Shaw, 2003).The NSC was apparently targeted as an obstacle against the principle of DCAF in all regular reports.
According to the Turkish military, the government thinks 'twice before it makes decisions that run counter to the NSC basic philosophy' (Faucompret and Konings, 2008).Decisions of the NSC are exempt from judicial review.As a consequence, the NSC has been accepted as a stabilising force which is a conciliatory institution in the disputes among political parties.Article 68/4 of the 1982 Constitution states that 'political parties cannot engage in acts that threaten the Turkish Republic and its founding principles' and Article 69/6 states that the 'Constitutional Court can decide the closure of a political party accused of such acts'.NSC is a lasting institution in a country where political parties can be banned (Turkish Constitution, 1982).
Furthermore, the NSC has represent-tatives in other constitutional institutions such as High Audio-Visual Board and High-Education Board.Former is the Turkish state agency for monitoring, regulating, and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts.Latter is the institution that oversees the administration of universities in the Republic of Turkey (Emerson, 2004).
Another institution as a manifestation of the concentration of military power in 1982 Constitution was the State Security Courts (SSC).They were formed in 1973 and maintained their legal basis in 1982 Constitution.The SSC has been represented as the judicial branch of the military influence, affected national security and checked political dissents according to the Penal Code.The panel of three judges in each SSC included a military judge.Through the SSC, the military and state elites have maintained their control on business organisations, trades union, and political parties.The purpose of the existence of the SSC has been to keep these organisations 'partly subordinated to the state' (Grigoriadis, 2009).Another example of military influence is the extrabudgetary funds available to the military.Moreover, Turkish military is closely involved in country's economic sectors as well.The military, holding the Armed

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Forces Pension Fund (OYAK-Ordu Yardımla ma Kurumu) was founded in 1961 in order to manage military social security funds.It aims to improve the living standards of Turkish officers.OYAK can be included among the first three largest economic sectors in the country now.It is exempt from taxes and cooperates with other powerful military holding companies (Rouleau, 2000).The Chief of General Staff (CGS) exerts a high influence in Turkey politics under the 1982 Constitution.He has always been a retired general and Chief of General Staff is the second most powerful person after the president.President appoints The CGF, but CGS is responsible to the Prime Minister instead of Ministry of Defence.Consequently, the CGF ranks below the prime minister but above any minister in protocol.According to the EU Commission, CGF should be responsible to the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Defense should be the deciding body in policy-making about the defense issues.In Turkey, the main defense policy is set up by the council of Ministers according to the principles and priorities 'determined by the Chief of the General Staff' (Güney and Karatekelio lu, 2005).
In addition to Constitutional guarantees, the military enjoys moral guarantees.Although the Turkish military forced out democratic government several times, it remains 'extremely popular' with the people (Faucompret and Konings, 2008).Notably, the rise of Kurdish nationalism and secularisation concerns have brought the military back into political space.People consider that there always have been peaceful turnouts of power to the political leaders after the coups.According to an investigation of Eurobarometer, 82% of the Turkish population voted for Turkish military as the most confidential institution in the country in 2008 (NTV, 2008).It is not surprising that Turkish army is divided about the EU membership issue.The Turkish army favours the Turkey's Westernisation, because Atatürk argued that modern Republic will develop by following West.However, EU has always favoured the dominance of political elites over state elites and expansion of civilian control over military in Turkey.Hence, the EU condemns the interventions of Turkish army.The military has a rightful excuse in this respect: Turkey is such a country that its unity and secularism principle of the state should been protected, even the consequence will be EU's condemnation (Heper, 2005).27 February Process, which took place in 1997 can be a good example to illustrate this case.Islamist Welfare Party (WP) gained the majority of the seats in the parliament in 1995 general elections (Turkey Electoral Data, 1995).The party's president, Necmeddin Erbakan became Turkey's first Islamist priminister by that time.He started to behave as an Islamist activist and tried to mobilise Islamist sides, and just after one year, Commanders of Turkish army warned the government through several speeches that secularism was under threat (Lombardi,1997).
Turkish military leaders did not use direct power but affected politics indirectly in a NSC meeting on 28 February, 1997.The Military presented to the government a list of '18-anti Islamist measures', such as closure of private Qur'anic schools.The measures were approved by parliament but not implemented and the military maintained to put pressure on government for a month.In May 1997, the public presecutor applied to the Constitutional court for the closure of the WP and WP was banned in February 1998 (Jenkins, 2007).Unsurprisingly, the EU condemned this 'post-modern' coup.
The military argues that its fight against Islamic extremism should be seen as a proof of its 'allegiance to the Western world' by the EU (Cizre,1997).In other words, one side in the Turkish army favours EU membership parallel to Westernisation principle and for economic benefits.Nonetheless, they have an excuse to intervene in politics as mentioned earlier.According to this side, Kurds and the Islamists can use EU humanrights discourse to defend their own rights and therefore, threaten uniter and secular features of the Republic of Turkey.As Tocci claims, 'giving a chance to politics' is a risky position for Turkish military (Tocci, 2005).For instance, after closure of the WP, a General declared that: 'None of us are willing to take control of this country or to become involved in politics.But while some bodies are in a continuing state of ignorance, we have no other option.Everybody should understand the Turkish military's sensitivity on Turkey's interests both at home and abroad' (Turkish Daily News,1998).
Once, the Chief of Staff, General Hüseyin Kıvrıko lu stated: 'The membership of the EU will assure so many benefits for Turkey.Turkey wants to increase its welfare and this could be done much more easily in the EU.However, what we say is that the critical position of Turkey, the geo-strategic position of Turkey that always creates problems, should be taken into consideration as the membership efforts are made' (Kiri çi, 2006).In contrast, there is another side in Turkish military which has an absolute opposition approach against the EU membership.Secretary General of the NSC General Tuncer Kılınç declared in 2002 that 'the EU is a Christian club and a neo-colonial force that wants to divide Turkey'.
Moreover, General Suat Ilhan once declared: 'The EU prepares the ground for the resolution of the Turkish-Greek dispute in favour of Greece...paves the way for carving out Turkish territories via endeavours in minority rights' (Turkish Daily News, 2002).According to Türkmen, the reason for this situation is two-fold: 'refusal of subjugation to civilian rule and protection of its institutions against reprisals for its role in past authoritarian governments' (Türkmen, 2008).Turkey is such a country that democratisation process cannot be imposed to the country through the Europeanisation directly.There are different sensitivities, a high domestic resistance by the military which exists as the main reason of the misfit between the Turkey politics and the EU requirements.This is mentioned several times in the Commission Reports.
In the aftermath of 27 February Process, the predictions of the Republican alliance that it would be hard for Islamist activism to recover itself was justified (Jenkins, 2007).Some members of WP formed Virtue Party (VP) after the closure in 1998, but VP received only 15.4% of popular vote in elections and they had the same fate with the WP.However, after five years from the closure of WP, another conservative party, Justice and Development Party (JDP) has become the most powerful party in the parliament.JDP had 34.43% of the popular vote and 365 seats in the parliament, in 2002 (Turkey Electoral Data, 2002).When JDP became the main party in the parliament, Republican alliance (which includes military as well as the opposition RPP) concerned that political Islamist activism would revive (Visier, 2009).In contrast, democratisation and liberalisation process has gained an impetus in Turkey and the EU decided on the commencement of accession negotiations in 2004, at the Copenhagen Summit (European Council, 2002).
Since its foundation in 2001, JDP has tried to become a pro-Islamic political party defined earlier.The ideology of the JDP leaders completely differed from their Islamist processedors.In this respect, their ideology and use of the 'EU discourse' in a democratic context have been the two main reasons that brought them into force.Firstly, they focused on economic-social issues and individual rights, not only on the state and its principles.Turkey had economic crises by that time.Two million workers had lost their job and there were numerous corruption scandals.The 1999 -2002 coalition government (formed by Democratic Left Party, the Motherland Party and the Nationalist Action Party) was insufficient in governing the country.In the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index for 2002, Turkey was 64 th out of 102 countries (Aras and Gökay, 2003).Over the past years, the failure of Republican parties proved that being only Atatürk's regime's guard was not sufficient for economic development.
Secondly, JDP argued for religious freedom in the context of 'European model of the relationship between state and religion' which has been demanded by the religious people in Turkish society for a long time.Religious freedoms such as the headscarf issue or religious education were discussed in a democracy context in Turkey for the first time in its political history.Indeed, majority of the JDP members were from Erbakan's Islamist party before.But none of them had been activist during the WP's governing period.This fact had been a reliable justification for their discourse.JDP has emerged as the first party from 'Islamist political tradition' which address complaints of Turkey's Muslim population on the basis of liberalisation and human rights.
JDP leaders rejected to use the term of 'Islamist' in order to describe their ideology.Instead, they preferred terms such as conservative and democratic.JDP leaders have also declared that they do not want to exclude themselves from the Western World, but they only want to respect traditional values and establish a system where people freely express their beliefs.JDP seeked to identify itself with the 'equivalent religious values-based Christian democratic parties of Western Europe' (Grigoriadis, 2009).Indeed, it can be argued that JDP has tried to prove that undermining counter-official cultures by the state elite and showing them as a threat to the state was not compatible with the European participant political culture (Aras and Gökay, 2003).
JDP has described its main purpose as full membership of the EU.They have also targeted the state elite and military influence over civilian governments.Several party members declared that the procedures are different in the EU countries.If Turkey wants to become an EU member, the country had to become a country where freedoms are respected.Civilian governments should also have the ability to make reforms in this respect without an intervention from military.Prime Minister Erdo an stated that 'democracy is a train to be taken on the way to the final destination, and that the vehicle would be left when it had outlived its usefulness' (Turan, 2007).Herein, related to the use of discourse discussion earlier, JDP criticised domestic structures and identified its incompabilities with the EU.Hence, EU conditionality indirectly empowered the JDP against its rivals.Abdullah Gul's (a candidate from JDP by that time and the current President of Turkey) speech is remarkable in this respect: '...and, 34 years ago Turkey was told friend: Go fix your economy, and become a democratic, not a military democracy, in a real sense, a real democracy.They gave you 34 years of preparation and everything you did went in the opposite direction.You encountered at least three coups' (Loizides and Ersin, 2009).
Indeed, a majority of the military leaders, High Court of Administrative Appeals, senior officials of the public institutions such as Council of Higher Education believe that JDP has a 'secret agenda' to dismantle the secular order.However, Turkey was now a candidate of the EU and a military intervention would be extraordinary for a country negotiating for EU membership.Furthermore, the JDP's use of Westernisation discourse and identification has also challenged the military to intervene in politics directly.As Grigoriadis claims, the JDP leadership challenged 'the monopoly of Kemalist elites in their advocacy of Westernisation'.EU's granting of the candidacy and promise that the accession negotiations would be initiated if Turkey meets the Copenhagen criteria in 2002 has affected both the Turkish society and the Turkish political space.During this period, approval rates of EU membership ranged from 60 to 80% (Grigoriadis, 2009).Therefore, domestic resistance and costs for the JDP government has reduced to an extent in the way of complying with the EU rules.
During the period of 2002 to 2004, a tension between the JDP and Republican opposition parties, state elites Oney and Halilsoy 8839 and military was observed.This caused procrastination on the JDP's reforms about the military issues.Therefore, there had not been remarkable change in the role of the NSC until 2002 (Günay andKaratekelio lu, 2005).However, the credibility of the EU promise in the process of pre-accession in 2002 made the EU conditionality effecttive and accelerated reforms.Turkey has been expecting this for the opening of the accession negotiations for several years.Therefore, speed of the reforms was increased.In this respect, the JDP has tried to pass reform packages that bring new rules, as well as to amend strict nature of the 1982 Constitution.Reform packages entailed domestic changes in domestic structures and they represented a clear response to EU conditionality.In 2002, fifth constitutional package entailed a retrial of all cases decided in SSCs (Bac, 2005).In 2004, SSCs were completely abolished (Commission's Regular Report on Turkey's Progress, 2005).Seventh reform package in 2003 revised the composition and functioning of the NSC.The number of civilian members of the NSC has been increased from five to nine.After that time, generals would not have a majority vote.In addition, civilians would not be prosecuted by the military courts in peacetime.Moreover, the advisory role of NSC was revised.The Governments would 'evaluate' them instead of giving them 'priority consideration'.In other words, NSC decisions' implementation would not be obligatory for the governments.Package stated that 'the NCS shall submit to the council of Ministers its views on advisory decisions.'And 'the Council of Ministers shall evaluate decisions of the NSC' (Commission's Regular Report on Turkey's Progress, 2004).
The status of Secretary General would not be reserved exclusively for a person with military background.First civilian NSC Secretary of General was appointed in 2004.The NSC budget would be submitted to the Court of Auditors.Military spending would be subject to parliamentary supervision.In addition, in order to reduce NCS's influence over government, NSC meetings were reduced to two times in a month instead of once in a month (Commission's Regular Report on Turkey 's Progress, 2004).With ninth reform package in 2004, NSC representatives were removed from High Audio-Visual Board and High-Education Board, which were civil bodies (Commission's Regular Report on Turkey's Progress, 2005).
Although, it was clarified that domestic resistance has reduced to an extent in the implementation of these reforms, it is hard to argue that mentality of strict side of Turkish military has changed.A number of events in Turkish political life can be observed in this respect, even after the EU opened the accession negotiations with Turkey.For instance, a great majority of the military leaders undermined the reforms.After the seventh reform package was passed by the government, General Hüseyin Kıvrıko lu stated: 'If they want 100 civilians as members of the NSC, so be it.There will be no objecttions.In any case, NSC decisions aren't taken through voting' (Schimmelfennig et al., 2005).
In addition, there were indications that high-level military officials were planning to intervene in politics with a coup throughout 2004.The weekly political periodical Nokta has reached some confidential military documents and published a series of articles 'investigating the military's activities against the ruling party JDP government' in March 2007.On 29 March, it published excerpts of a diary written by the former navy commander Özden Örnek.According to Nokta newspaper, this diary entails a detailed military coup plans that was prepared by the commanders of the army, navy, the air forces and the gendarmerie (ESI Briefing, 2008).
It is not hard to observe that the EU requirements are putting a serious pressure on Turkey.There are still calls for reforms to have a more pluralistic constitution in Turkey, both from the EU and Turkish society.The JDP has 340 seats out of 550 in the parliament.According to article 175 of Turkish Constitution, if a party has number of votes between the two third (367) and one fifth (330) majority in the parliament, President can submit the amendments to be voted by the society without the support of other political parties (Turkish Constitution, 1982).The JDP has already succeeded in the referendum for constitutional amendments which took place in 12 th September 2010 which 58% of the population voted in favour of the government's proposal.Europeanisation encompasses the domestic empowerment of actors who tries to 'root out authoritarian structures' and to place the 'pluralistic political culture of open and tolerant debate' in Turkey.According to Dyson, this system works if there is a demand for this type of political culture by the public (Dyson, 2007).

Conclusions
This study examines the Turkish civil-military relations in the Europeanisation context after Turkey became a candidate state in 1999, Helsinki Summit.The theory of top-down Europeanisation is used to demonstrate EUlevel (conditionality) pressure effect on Turkey's domestic structures.After the Copenhagen Criteria (1993), the EU has started to use effective conditionality.The EU uses effective tools such as monitoring to measure the candidates' compliance with the EU rules, not only in terms of legal institutionalism but also for implementation of these rules in practice.
According to DCAF principle, there should be civilian control of the militaries, no military interferences to domestic politics, ideological neutrality and minimal role in the national economy if candidates expect to fulfil the criteria.This study shows the incompabilities between the Turkish procedures and the principles accepted by the EU.Military interferences in Turkey are heavily criticised by the EU.The Turkish elites (military and civil) who established the Republic of Turkey formed a Republican alliance.This alliance develops a strict state tradition and interventionist understanding against any threat to secular and uniter character of the state.
According to the Turkish military, they interfere in domestic politics to protect the democratic, secular and uniter order of the Turkish Republic.But each time they intervened, they formed their own constitution, such as 1982 post-coup Constitution to protect their interest and position.In addition, a paradoxal issue is noticed which is important to understand the Turkish military's sensitivities about the domestic politics.Indeed, the Turkish military supports the Westernisation of Turkey.However, they are sceptic about the reforms, aiming to fulfil political conditionality.Because, according to them, further democratisation and liberalisation processes can be used by the Islamist activists or Kurdish nationalist to promote their interests against the secular and unitary character of Turkish Republic.
The key role of The Justice and Development Party's (JDP) in Europeanisation process is also discussed.The Republican Alliance (military/civil elites) has always had reservations about the political parties with Islamic roots and therefore, the JDP had been strictly criticised by military.But, the JDP is different from other Islamic parties in several ways.The JDP transformed itself as a mild pro-Islamic conservative party that has respects to human rights, rule of law and minority rights in parallel to conservative parties in Europe.The Pro-European majority of the Turkish society has been expected for several years to have an alternative political party which would set up a pluralistic pro-European agenda with respect to religious rights.The JDP achieved this and made a credible criticism on Republican alliance by focusing on socio-economic issues and by targeting the military influence and using military's own Westernisation discourse.
The reform process is analysed by focusing on Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier's external incentives and social learning models.It can be argued that theoretical perspectives selected in the first part of the article have worked for the Turkish case.Affectivity of conditionality in terms of credibility was justified for Turkey case when reforms on military issues gained an impetus as the EU declared the probability of the opening of Accession Negotiations in 2002.It was also observed that the EU has been a good source for identification of pro-European Turkish political elites.As the pro-European Islamic Turkish society identifies itself with the EU, they contribute to the JDP's reforms by voting in favour of the reforms.
The last part of the article focused on the recent events in Turkish political history and a dramatic situation was observed.It is hard to claim that Europeanisation has ended with complete compliance with the EU rules, at least until now.
Existence of NSC and unchanged understanding of the strict sides of the military are apparent proofs in this respect.
Therefore, if we turn to Radaelli's four-fold framework to assess the outcomes of Europeanisation for Turkey case, we observe that there was an inertia condition until 2002.However, the pressure both from the EU, the JDP and pro-European society has caused this situation and it becomes impossible to sustain, politically.Usually, in the beginning, domestic structures maintain their core structure by only absorbing non-fundamental changes, for instance, changing functioning of NSC instead of its abolition.EU conditionality is a powerful policy tool, but it has to take into account the domestic actors' sensitivities.Piece by piece rather than wholesale changes seem to be more appropriate.Turkey provides a good example in this sense.