Turkey's European Future: Behind the Scenes of America's Influence on EU-Turkey Relations.

• Author: Gursoy, Yaprak
• Position: Book review

Turkey's European Future: Behind the Scenes of America's Influence on EU-Turkey Relations

By Nathalie Tocci

New York and London: New York University Press, 2011, 214 pages, ISBN 97808147 84099.

TURKEY'S EUROPEAN FUTURE tackles the question of how the United States (US) has influenced relations between the European Union (EU) and Turkey, and especially the decisions of the EU on Turkey. Except for a few notable scholarly articles, US-EU-Turkey relations have not been investigated in depth. In this well-written and well-organized book, Tocci addresses this gap in the literature by thoroughly examining in what ways, mechanisms, and in which direction the United States has had an impact on the decisions of the EU regarding Turkey. The book focuses mostly on the 1990s and 2000s, however the main findings provide considerable insight for the earlier periods, as well as for the future.

In three ways, Tocci's research warrants special praise. First, she does not treat the EU and the United States as monolithic entities, but unpacks them and examines the actors that have different views on Turkey, their interests, and potential influence on Turkish-EU relations. In chapter 2, she identifies American stakeholders as state actors, such as the Department of State, the Department of Defense and Congress, and various business groups, think tanks, and lobbies. Except for Congress at certain intervals and some of the non-governmental organizations, most of the actors in the US view Turkey and Turkish-EU relations from a geostrategic perspective, resulting in the use of metaphors such as Turkey as a buffer, bridge, model or independent country. This geostrategic emphasis, however, strikes a chord only in a limited number of European actors. As Tocci shows in chapter 3, the European stakeholders have different areas of concern, which are reflected in more diversified debates on Turkey than in the US. This same chapter tackles Turkish membership to the EU, a multifaceted issue. Here, Tocci summarizes how various institutions of the EU and member states, as well as political parties, businesses, NGOs, media, churches, and various diaspora communities position themselves on the question of Turkish membership. Only a limited number of European state institutions and civil society actors concentrate on geostrategic and foreign policy facets of Turkish-EU relations. Furthermore, only those actors upon which the US has direct influence look at the relationship...