Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Gilbert Scott Building - Room 134 (University of Glasgow)
President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey have come to symbolize two global trends since the Great Recession and Eurozone crisis: rising authoritarianism and declining support among emerging economies for Western-led political and economic institutions.[1] Less clear is whether Putin and Erdoğan represent deeply-held elite and public attitudes, notwithstanding economic dependence on the EU as each country’s largest trading partner. Do current anti-EU attitudes portend a longer-term external threat to the democratic liberal values that are the foundation of European unity? While both countries suffer from economic malaise and malady of governance, they are anchors of the regional economic and political order on Europe’s periphery. Both lay claim to rich civilizational contributions that are interlocked with, yet distinct from, Western historiography and culture through an important oriental heritage. Such histories lend legitimacy to national narratives about the exceptionalism of each country in relation to Europe, yet also complicate the formation of strategic partnerships that are based on liberal democratic values. The paper: i) analyzes the origins of anti-European attitudes in Turkey and Russia (the dependent variable) against international and domestic political economy factors (independent variables); ii) argues that the roots of elite and public attitudes go deeper than current debates over refugees, sanctions and Syria; and iii) draws consequences for future EU cohesion from the repudiation of Western liberal values by Russia and Turkey.
[1] See, for example, the special issue on “Authoritarianism Goes Global” in Journal of Democracy, Volume 26, No. 3, July 2015.
