ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that questions of identity have always preoccupied the governing elite of the Turkish Republic in their efforts to become part of Europe. Questions of modernization have been closely related to issues of identity and therefore of internal order and foreign policy in Turkey ever since the nineteenth century. During the course of the 1980s, Turkey found itself progressively distanced from a Europe engaged in redefining its identity and boundaries. Turkey, which has had a special relationship with the Community since the 1960s, seems to be relegated to the outside, albeit with important functions of regional mediation. Westernization has always been a dominant factor in the way Turkey’s relations with Europe have been perceived. For the elite, closer association with Europe would above all have a civilizing mission, whereby increasingly larger sections of the population would come into contact with Western ways of conducting their affairs, thus spreading the word from the elite downward.
