Good Samaritan, Bad Samaritan? Changing EU Narratives of Turkey

Turkey-EU relations endure for years and years, despite its ups and downs, collaborations and crises, reciprocal bona fides as well as accusations. More than fifty years, narratives within the EU-Turkey relations have fluctuated within the spectrum of the EU as a good to bad Samaritan. Despite the increasing need for further collaboration regarding the Syrian refugee crises for the mutual interests of the Union and Turkey, the recent developments rather demonstrate significant deterioration in the relations. This article focuses on the Turkish narratives of the EU as a democratic anchor to an enemy within the years by acquiring the candidate country status in 1999. Framing the EU by the Turkish authorities has dramatically changed through the years that can be signified starting by perceiving the EU as a good Samaritan to a bad Samaritan. Considering the reasons of the afore-mentioned dramatic change, the article argues that such change in the Turkish narratives of the EU is parallel with the deterioration in the Turkish democracy. At the end, the EU has not been perceived as a democratic anchor anymore, rather perceived as almost an enemy by the Turkish governors in the recent years, due to their losing interest on the democratization of the country. In order to unpack such dramatic change in the Turkish narratives of the EU, the article employs a computed-based qualitative content analysis (MAXQDA) of the speeches called Prime Ministers Address to the Nation and the government party’s (Justice and Development Party) group meetings in 1999-2016.