The AKP's Changing Support for EU Accession: Secular Constraints, Organizational Capacities, and Religious Ideas

Since it came to power in 2002, Turkey’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) achieved significant democratic reforms in order to meet the European Union (EU)’s membership criteria. However, this initial reform process collapsed into stalled democratization and EU fatigue during the party’s second and third terms in office. What explains the party’s declining support for the EU integration project and the democratization reforms that it entails after 2007? Previous studies have analyzed AKP’s EU-oriented reforms using the rationalist external incentives model focusing on credible EU conditionality and the benefits of EU compliance. Very little attention has been paid to how the AKP’s Islamic roots (or religion in general) have influenced its calculation and perception of the benefits of EU integration and reforms.

The paper argues that AKP’s choices as an Islamic-rooted organization have shaped its shifting calculations and strategic positions vis-a-vis the EU and democratic reforms. During its initial rule, AKP had weak organizational capacities and thus used the EU reform process in order to consolidate its position in the domestic secular context. After 2007, however, comparatively stronger capacities, including an increased vote share and a more consolidated stance with respect to the secular establishment, reduced the party’s dependence on the EU for domestic political empowerment. Consequently, EU democratic reforms have stalled or even regressed after 2007. The paper demonstrates this argument by showing that the other explanatory variables (i.e., domestic secular constraints, AKP’s moderate Islamic ideology) have remained constant in the period under study (2002-present).