Intermingled cycles of hegemony-building: Europeanization and minority policies in Greece during the Simits period

Abstract:

Drawing on the changes and continuities in Greek official discourse and state policies towards the Turkish speaking Muslim minority in the 1990s, this article discusses the impact of Europeanization process on the state-minority relations in Greece from the neo-Gramscian perspective. Referring to an upper cycle of hegemony-in-building process between the EU and Greece in the late 1990s, the article addresses the discursive and/or practical changes and continuities in the minority policy framework during the 1990s as well as prospects of the Greek state’s relations with the Turkish/Muslim minority. Within this context, it examines the likelihood of a hegemonic relationship between the Greek state and the Turkish/Muslim minority, based on the consent of the latter under the framework of a broader hegemonic structure of the European Union.