Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union.

• Author: Zengin, Sibel Alaman
• Position: Book review

Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union

By Ioannis N. Grigoriadis

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 231 pages, [euro]85.59, ISBN: 9780230618053

Turkey's modernization and Westernization process, which started with 'Tanzimat' in 1839 with an overt ambition during the Ottoman period, cultivated an awareness of political liberalism in Turkish political culture. The central assertion in the book is that Turkey-EU relations have significantly affected progress toward the liberalization of Turkish political culture. Grigoriadis argues that Turkey's democratic transformation entered into an ongoing and irreversible phase, especially after two critical decisions of the European Council: the Helsinki European Council decision of December 1999, when Turkey became a candidate for EU membership, and the decision of the Brussels European Council in December 2004, to begin negotiations on October 3, 2005. One of the major contributions of Grigoriadis's book to the existing literature is to illustrate the steps Turkey has made toward the development of a 'civic' and 'participant' political culture, from a 'subject' model in this distinctive candidate country that has been waiting at the door of the EU for almost six decades.

Throughout the book, the author produces reasonable criteria for the diachronic, complex character of Turkish political culture. It constitutes an outline of many subjects in an informative sequence encompassing the most important moments in the political, social, and cultural history of Turkey. Regarding its presentation, the book is well-organized into seven chapters. The first two introductory chapters prepare the methodological and historical background of the study. Pointing out the definitions and classifications of parochial, subject, and political culture, Grigoriadis meticulously follows a comparative method and points out that a 'participant' model of political culture with the growing role of civil society has been progressively established in Turkey although a 'subject' political culture still persists with the need for crucial improvements to continue on the way of democracy (pp. 14-20). The points he makes regarding the evidence on the presence of both subject and participant culture in Turkey are quite persuasive.

Within the scope and aim of the book, the author designedly supports his argument with three theories concerning European Integration: historical institutionalism, path...