The AKP's shifting support for EU accession: Secular constraints, organizational capacities and religious ideas

Abstract

In Turkey’s June 2011 elections, the Islamic-rooted AKP won another landmark victory to form its third, consecutive majority government. This firm return of Islamic values to the public ‘square’has solicited many questions about the direction of Turkish politics and the future of Turkey’s EU accession path. For some, the AKP epitomizes a platform of ‘unabashed pursuit of EU membership’(Özel 2008: 57) and the most developed example of ‘Muslim democracy today’(Nasr 2005: 25). In fact, many agree that Turkey has overseen an impressive period of transformation and delivered the most ambitious reforms required to proceed towards EU accession under AKP rule. These reforms, however, have not silenced critics, who have tagged the AKP’s reforms as an electoral strategy hiding ‘red-line’Islamic demands (Baran 2008). Despite the controversy, research shows convincingly that the AKP’s enthusiastically driven democratic reforms during its first term have collapsed into stalled democratization and EU fatigue during its second and third terms in office. This chapter seeks to explain why the AKP has adopted different positions towards European integration and the democratization reforms that it entails in different time periods in office. In particular, what explains the party’s declining support for the EU integration project after its second return to office in 2007?