ABSTRACT
Turkey’s aspiration to be integrated into the European state system could be
said to have started in the eighteenth century, when the Ottoman Turks rea-
lized that they had fallen behind the European states in terms of military
technology, administrative systems and economic prosperity. Therefore,
Turkey’s relations with the principal European states and organizations since
the eighteenth century have been understood by the Turkish governing elites
as a process of catching up with the contemporary level of civilization
through ‘Europeanization.’ While modernizing elites in Turkey have generally regarded Turkey’s integration with Europe as the major driving force
in modernization, the conservative/Islamic circles in Turkey have harbored
deep suspicions about further Westernization and the penetration of Western
cultural values into Turkey. The latter groups, until very recently, have held anti-
Western and Euro-skeptic views and questioned Turkey’s further integration
with European states and later the European Union (EU). From this point of
view, the Justice and Development Party (JDP)’s views on Turkey-EU relations,
on Turkey’s membership in the EU, and on Europe deserve further analysis in order to demonstrate the transformation not only of Islamically-oriented social
and political movements in Turkey but also of a party with Islamic roots, in
government. This study aims to demonstrate the transformation of the ideas of
the conservative/Islamic groups in Turkey and of the JDP’s basic policies con-
cerning Europe and Turkey’s integration with the EU.1
