ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the discursive dimension of change based on the content analysis of foreign policy statements delivered by high-profile officials. In doing so, it tests two areas of policy: normative and substantive. In the normative area, it looks at whether Turkish policymakers started to ‘talk the talk’ of the EU by giving attention to peace, international cooperation, minority rights, the rule of law and the peaceful settlement of disputes as foreign policy objectives and tools. In the substantive area, it looks at whether the EU is given as a reference point to justify Turkey’s objectives, and the extent to which the EU is mentioned. As for the data, this chapter relies on the budgetary proceedings of the Planning and Budgetary Commission of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, as they were the only systematically available data for a diachronic analysis. The data analysis followed a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques. This chapter concludes that the conditionality mechanism was successful in explaining the variation in the discursive change, but notes that these changes were mostly driven by the domestic-level variables as proposed by the conditionality mechanism.
