The Future of Turkey’s Westernization: A Security Perspective

Abstract: This article argues that Turkey's relations with the Western international community, namely the European Union and the United States, have been going through difficult times over the last couple of years mainly owing to the growing divergences between the security understandings of the parties concerned. Despite the fact that internal factors, such as the ongoing power struggle among domestic actors, have a good deal of explanatory power, the emerging security environment in Turkey's neighborhood, particularly in Iraq, and its impacts on Turkey's internal security have recently become more important in bringing into existence a skeptical Turkish attitude towards the West in general and the westernization process in particular. The changing Western security understanding in the post 9/11 era on the one hand and the growing Western demands that Turkey adopt this understanding should she aspire to become a legitimate part of the West on the other have growingly led the establishment elites in Turkey to challenge the legitimacy of the decades-long westernization/Europeanization process from a security perspective