ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an in-depth cross-time analysis of European citizens’ attitudes towards Turkey’s accession to the European Union (EU). Our goal is to identify the direction of European opinion patterns concerning Turkey, and to explain key determinants of variation in popular support for Turkey’s possible membership of the EU. The opinions and preferences of the mass public play a key role in Turkey’s EU accession as EU member states require consent from the populace to accept candidate countries as members.1 Turco-sceptic citizens might halt Turkey’s accession to the EU by voting against it in referenda or by electing Turco-sceptic policy-makers at national and European levels who would work against Turkey. Thus, there is no doubt that understanding the nature and determinants of European public opinion is essential to future Turkey-EU relations.
