European parliament ‘doing’ Europe

Unravelling the right-wing culturalist discourse on Turkey’s accession to the EU

Senem Aydın-Düzgit | Istanbul Bilgi University

This article focuses on the discourses of the main centre-right political party group (EPP-ED, EPP) in the European Parliament on Turkey’s accession to the European Union. It utilises the analytical framework of the Discourse-Historical Approach in Critical Discourse Analysis to mainly concentrate on the articulations of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural identity’ in the discussions over Turkish accession in official parliamentary debates and in-depth personal interviews with the members of this group. It is argued that a relational theorising of identity allows for analysis of the ways in which a cultural ‘Europe’ is articulated through current discussions on Turkey in the mainstream right-wing European Parliament discourse and thus reveals the cultural borders that are enacted with reference to Turkish membership within this group.

Keywords: Turkey-EU relations, critical discourse analysis, discourse-historical approach, foreign policy, identity

Published online: 26 May 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.1.08ayd

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Buhari-Gulmez, Didem & Seckin Baris Gulmez

2020. Theorizing many Europes: a four-fold taxonomy. European Politics and Society ► pp. 1 ff.

Gürkan, Seda

2018. The role of the European Parliament in Turkey-EU relations: A troublemaker or a useful normative actor?. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 18:1 ► pp. 107 ff.

Türkeş-Kılıç, Selin

2020. Justifying privileged partnership with Turkey: an analysis of debates in the European Parliament. Turkish Studies 21:1 ► pp. 29 ff.

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