The European Union Dilemma of the Kurds: High Support for Membership despite Lack of Sufficient Trust.

• Author: Samur, Hakan
• Position: ARTICLE - Essay

Introduction

One of the most vital factors for the EU to achieve its desire to expand the integration process from its original field of economics to other areas, and ultimately to reach its ideal of a fully-fledged union, is sufficient support and loyalty from the populace of member and potential member states. Consequently, what people in member and candidate states think about EU-related issues, and how they position the EU in the context of their own world--that is to say their orientation toward the EU--is a critical matter. In the case of a country such as Turkey, which has been waiting at the EU's door for quite some time, and has been the subject of perhaps the most discussions on whether or not it should be a member, the matter of the Kurds becomes one that specifically needs to be addressed.

One of the most important priorities concerning EU membership at the national level in Turkey is the rights and freedoms of the Kurds living in Turkey. Since the Kurdish people are critically positioned both in terms of Turkey's internal dynamics and its relationship with the EU, the Kurds own orientation toward the EU is a matter that needs to be assessed specifically and separately from that of the overall general public.

Based on a comprehensive study carried out in Turkey's southeast cities where the Kurdish populace mainly resides, this paper seeks to analyze the type and extent of Kurdish orientation toward the EU in that part of the country. (1) It consists of three sections; the first section conveys how people's orientation toward the EU, emerged as a necessity and how this was addressed theoretically. The second section offers information on Turkey's EU accession process and the place of the Kurdish question within it, and describes both the relevant literature in Turkey and parameters of the present study. Finally, a detailed analysis of the Kurdish orientation toward the EU, based on the findings from our study, is presented in the final section.

Orientation toward the EU: Historical Background and Content

The European cooperation movement that embarked in the 1950s was elite--driven and based on an understanding of gradual progress; by the late 1960s, it had achieved significant economic gains in terms of establishing a customs union and providing prosperity to member state populations. Due in part to this success--and in accordance with its initial understanding--the political elite, academics, and other relevant circles became increasingly more vocal in the early 1970s to both deepen the cooperation movement in the financial domain, and expand it to non-financial areas. While matters related to deepening and expanding this integration process were being discussed during this period, another related issue that inevitably came to the fore was the public opinion about the process itself; what member state populations thought about the EU project, and how their support could be increased. This was because more advanced integration would be possible only if member state populations cared about and backed the EU, and ultimately converged at a common understanding of being European.

At the Paris Summit (2) held in October 1972, which was the first summit held by the nine-member EU, a resolution was made to further boost political cooperation, while the need to ensure that citizens were more actively included in the process and held a positive orientation toward the EU was also emphasized. (3) From then on, discussions concerning public opinion and people's orientation toward the EU continued hand in hand with efforts to create a broader common identity and sense of belonging on the one hand, and increase the EU's democratic outlook on the other. These matters gained momentum specifically after the 1990s, and the issue of how people justified being for or against the EU--not only in member states but candidate states as well--was often on the public agenda. The fact that Eurobarometer surveys were administered to gauge people's views on matters related to the EU in member states from 1973 onwards, in central and eastern European countries from 1990 onwards, and in all candidate nations from 2001 onwards can be considered a clear reflection of the EU's objective to take public opinion into consideration. Other examples include the fact that members of the European Parliament have been elected by the public since 1979, and that referendums are the preferred choice when it comes to any critical steps the EU plans to take. In addition, knowing people's orientation toward the EU is especially important in candidate nations so as to ensure that the accession process runs smoothly.

The issues described above in terms of the EU praxis have been extensively addressed in academic circles. The focal point of all the discussions and studies concerning the peoples' orientation toward the EU basically comes down to one single question: (4) What are the expectations underlying people's support for the EU? In general, two main groups of expectations have emerged from these discussions. The first is that people's orientation toward the EU--for or against--is shaped on the basis of economic-utilitarian expectations. The second group extends beyond personal utilitarian expectations, and concerns being for or against the EU on the basis of mostly abstract-idealist gains or losses. Let us now take a more in--depth look at these two groups of expectations.

Due to human nature, it makes sense that people think about personal and familial prosperity first and foremost, and act according to various financial expectations. Consequently, it is understandable that people hold and even prioritize certain utilitarian-economic expectations that shape their orientation toward the EU. The utilitarian-economic expectations that Ronald Inglehart--a leading name often referred to in issues concerning orientation toward the EU--calls "materialist values," which are exemplified in efforts to seek financial prosperity and physical safety, (5) can be found in Niedermayer and Westle's (6) frequently cited orientation typology, and many other studies as well. (7) As we noted earlier, the first objective of the European integration movement was to offer citizens of member states certain gains in the economic domain so that they felt closer to the movement, (8) and ultimately arrived at common identity characteristics resulting from the cooperation based on these gains. (9) In fact, some have even examined orientation toward the EU directly in terms of economic expectations, based on the idea that European integration focuses on economics first and foremost, and unlike nation states, lacks a strong foundation in terms of an abstract-idealist orientation. (10)

Although a utilitarian-economic orientation may be what is rational, expected, and even necessary to a certain extent in terms of ensuring public support for European integration, there is also a need for a type of orientation that is not based on loss-profit calculations and perhaps offers a stronger bond than a reversible utilitarian-economic orientation. At this point, abstract-idealist support emerges not simply on the basis of certain financial expectations, but by including evaluations of emotional-spiritual gains and values. (11) Determining the drivers of an abstract-idealist orientation is not as easy as determining the drivers of a utilitarian-economic one, because detecting and measuring these drivers is rather difficult. Instances where people develop expectations on the basis of national sovereignty or culture, or on the basis of values such as peace and democracy instead of economic gains, could be considered examples of being for or against an idealist stance. (12) The approach that Inglehart (13) conceptualizes as "post-materialist values," which include such concerns as caring for human rights, the freedom of expression, political participation, etc., can be considered another way to explain the idealist orientation.

Undoubtedly, the level and context of people's support or opposition toward European integration can be shaped not only by economic or value-based expectations, but also by many other parameters, as argued in the literature: class partisanship and support for national government, (14) national identity, (15) the role of national elites, (16) perceived cultural threat, (17) media coverage about the EU, (18) and so on. However, the predominance and robustness, foremost of utilitarian and then of idealist expectations, is notable across the relevant literature. (19) Moreover, the idealist orientation covers some of the aforementioned parameters, such as national identity, cultural threat, etc.

The concept of orientation toward the EU is actually more comprehensive than attitudes of simply being for or against the EU. We believe that Niedermayer and Westle's (20) typology of orientations best illustrates just how broad this issue is. According to these authors, people first have to be interested in and know about a political object (in this case, the EU) in order to be able to assess that object on the basis of certain economic or non-economic expectations and arrive at a certain attitude. This neutral orientation or initial psychological involvement as termed by the authors is the first level where interest in (awareness of) and knowledge about the EU begins to form. Inglehart also emphasizes the same thing when he notes that high political awareness and political communication--which also includes knowing about EU related issues--were skills that were a prerequisite to supporting the EU. He argued that people who were highly aware of and more knowledgeable not only discussed EU-related matters more, they even gradually began to assess these matters from a European perspective. (21)

Parenthetically it can be added that apart from neutral and evaluative orientations, there is a further mode of orientation in Niedermayer and Westle's (22) typology...