Deconstructing the EU's 'Standards of Civilisation': The Case of Turkey/AB'nin 'Medeniyet Standartlari'ni Cozumlemek: Turkiye Ornegi.

• Author: Cebeci, Munevver

Introduction

EU-Turkey relations have recently lost their traditional track because they have been affected by various factors, such as some EU member states' reluctance for further enlargement, increasing populism and xenophobia in Europe, problems with democracy and human rights in Turkey, the 2016 failed coup in the country and the following state of emergency, and, the mass flow of refugees from Syria to Europe. It is necessary to investigate the different aspects of this relationship now, because EU policy on Turkey is no longer one which reflects the characteristics of a relationship between the Union and a candidate country. (1) The EU currently bases its policies concerning Turkey purely on security concerns and transactional relations rather than on economic and political transformation in the country - a manner, in which it treats its neighbours but usually not its candidates. The EU has also lost its conditionality credibility (2) and leverage in its relations with Turkey for several reasons, such as the ambiguity surrounding the country's membership prospects (mainly due to the use of the rhetoric of privileged partnership instead of full membership by some European leaders such as Sarkozy and Merkel), the Union's suspension of the opening of some chapters in the accession negotiations based on Turkey's decision not to extend its customs union with the EU to Cyprus (3), and the Euro crisis. On the other hand, the exploitation of the possibility of Turkey's EU accession by the leave campaigners in the Brexit debates - through a deliberately exaggerated rhetoric hinging on disinformation (4)--has manifested once again the importance of identity in EU-Turkey relations.

As the Brexit debates and rising right-wing populism have revealed, the identity aspect of the EU-Turkey relationship, which has been a salient topic especially among Christian Democrats/Conservatives for years, is now increasingly discussed in wider circles in Europe with reference to security (irregular/illegal immigration, the mass flow of refugees, etc.). However, this identity aspect has deeper roots that need to be revisited to understand the dynamics of EU-Turkey relations better. (5) This article looks at a specific dimension of it, underlining the interplay between European foreign policy and identity in the Turkish case. It aims to provide a second reading; deconstructing the European standards of civilisation as employed in the case of Turkey.

Deconstruction, as taken up in this article, refers to a poststructuralist approach which traces the contradictions, tensions, and silences in the text, and reveals the binaries (civilised-uncivilised, ideal-imperfect, etc.) that the text produces. (6) The analysis here is directed towards disclosing these binaries rather than displacing them, with a view to manifesting the Euro-centric and exclusionary nature of the European discourse on Turkey.

EU conditionality functions through the imposition of a set of European standards on others. This usually cannot induce political transformation and internalisation of values such as respect for democracy and human rights in target countries, but rather remains an exercise in identity construction, reproducing EU-Europe's (EUrope's) "ideal" self vis-a-vis its "imperfect" others. Investigating how the EU's enlargement conditionality imposed on Turkey is a continuation of the standard of civilisation logic pursued by Europeans for accepting certain countries to the international society in the 17th-19th centuries; this article argues that the European standards of civilisation, as applied today, help the reproduction of the "ideal" European self vis-a-vis its Turkish other.

Over 90 public statements made on Turkey by EU officials, the Members of European Parliament (MEPs), and European leaders in the period 1999-2015 have been examined in this study--starting with the date of official EU candidacy of Turkey in 1999 and ending with December 2015; before the failed coup attempt of July 2016 and the following state of emergency changed the dynamics of EU-Turkey relations further. The examples selected from among the public statements are those which represent the three features of the EU's standards of civilisation as put forward by Hartmut Behr (7):

"first, the general self-perception of European states as those who authoritatively define the standards; second, the regulations which define different steps and paces of cooperation between European and non-European states [unequal treaties]; and finally a geopolitical model projecting a world order with European states at the centre and zones of less politically developed states at the peripheries." (8) Within such a framework, this article first defines the concept of "the standards of civilisation" as a marker of difference (i.e. of European identity) and of ideal characteristics of the EU. Then, it moves on to an analysis of how the European standards of civilisation have been invoked in Europe's relations with Turkey, in history as well as today. Third, discourse of the European standards of civilisation as employed in EU-Turkey relations is deconstructed via a second reading.

The European Standards of Civilisation and the EU

The construction of Europe as "ideal"--i.e. civilised, normative, superior--is not new. It can be traced back to the 16th century, with the employment of the "standards of civilisation" discourse that made a "legal distinction between civilised and uncivilised peoples" (9). The construction of the grand narrative of "international society" refers to a one-way process where the core (Europe/the West) influences the periphery. (10) Just like the aim of the European international society in the 19th century to change non-European countries "which sought to enter it," (11) the EU also attempts to transform the countries which seek membership in the Union. The relations between the "civilised" Europeans and the "barbarian/savage" others of the past are similar to those pursued between the "ideal"/"civilised" EUrope and its "imperfect"/"uncivilised" others today: The aim of transforming the "uncivilised" into a "civilised" form is still on track, through EU discourse and practices.

The Standard of Civilisation as a Marker of (European) Identity

The practice of "standards of civilisation" is an identity-construction exercise, where the difference of the self from the other is made on the basis not only of "geography" or "history of interaction" but also of "cultural values that make insiders different from, and in many ways superior to, outsiders" (12). Gerrit Gong asserts: "Those who fulfil the requirements of a particular society's standard of civilization are brought inside its circle of 'civilized' members, while those who do not so conform are left outside as 'not civilized' or possibly 'uncivilized'." (13)

"Civilisation" is also a marker of difference. It is "of considerable power that is used both to commend and condemn," (14) distinguishing between those who possess higher values and standards and those who do not. The "civilisation" speech act is utilized "both to describe and shape reality" (15). Furthermore, it has been employed to legitimize the acts of those who intervene in the affairs of others that are deemed to lack the values and standards of "civilised" communities. The term was used "in the imperial context--as both endorsement and critique of the process of European expansion" and "[i]n the nineteenth century, 'civilization' was taken to represent a mission of homogenization and 'improvement'" (16). In "imperial ideology" this meant the 'civilizing mission'" (17).

The concept of "civilisation" had especially been constitutive of European identity, as it was originally a European construct. The "civilization-barbarism dichotomy" rested "[t]o a large degree [...] upon the construction of a distinctive and cultural identity and lifestyle that was claimed for Europe and Europeans" (18). The notion of "standard of civilisation" embodied "cultural and/or religious identity markers" for Europeans especially before 1945 (19). Furthermore, Salter argues:

"[Civilization] also came to represent European states as a group. European nations--as exemplified by the Covenant of the League of Nations--saw themselves as the 'civilized' world in stark contrast to the savage and barbaric worlds. Laws of warfare and the treaties of international organizations were based on the tacit or explicit value consensus which 'European civilization' represented." (20) This superior (civilised) identity constructed against the inferior "savage"/"barbarian" (uncivilised) others empowered the Europeans to set the standards of international politics. This also had a geopolitical aspect because the "rules about a 'standard of civilisation' [had generally been] spread from a sub-global core by a mixture of means in which coercion is often prominent" (21). In Barry Buzan's view, such coercive practices, albeit less militarised, can still be observed today, and "can most clearly be seen in action in the operation of 'conditionality' imposed on periphery states by the core whether in relation to applications for NATO, EU or WTO membership or bids for loans from the IMF and the World Bank" (22).

The Standard of Civilisation as a Marker of the "Ideal" Characteristics of the EU

The representation of EUrope as model to be followed--an exemplar which has a claim to be inherently possessing universal values and norms--endows it with the legitimacy to project those values and norms onto others--i.e., the legitimacy to set the standards for others. Russell Foster asserts:

"And now we Europeans increasingly renounce universalism through maps which proclaim not only that there remains a barbaric wilderness lurking beyond our frontiers and that it is our duty and destiny to encompass a new civitas orbis Europaeum, but also that we must unite against the barbarians who will not be drawn into our...