ABSTRACT
The majority of the contributors to this volume met at Heidelberg, Germany, at a special session on Turkey-European Union (EU) relations at the European Society for International Studies Association Meeting in 2001. There, we reached the agreement that available debates on this issue were not satisfactory for answering the kinds of questions we were asking. The studies conducted so far had mainly been concerned with either what injustices were committed by the Union against Turkey, or what major deficiencies or preoccupations Turkey exhibited (which were mostly defined as related to its culture and its ‘developing country’ status) that were then inhibiting its accession to the EU. The aim of the editors of and contributors to this book is to open a new line of inquiry in the field of Turkey-EU relations that goes beyond these concerns and that can provide clues about actual prospects, local dynamics and frames of change.
