AKP's ‘Europeanization’ in Civilianization, Rule of Law and Fundamental Freedoms: The Primacy of Domestic Politics

The literature on European Union (EU)–Turkey relations has mostly focused on explaining the general slowdown in the Justice and Development Party (AKP)'s post-2005 Europeanization rather than analysing the more puzzling question of why some reforms persisted as opposed to others despite the falling credibility of EU membership in the same period. To fill this gap, the paper studies the AKP's differential ‘Europeanization’ concerning civilianization, rule of law and fundamental freedoms. While reforms targeting civilianization persisted over the years, democratic progress in the other two areas rather stalled after 2007. It is argued that this variation is induced by AKP's changing domestic political empowerment needs. Specifically, AKP used the EU reform process as an instrument of political survival followed by power consolidation after 2007.