De-Europeanisation as Counter-conduct: The Case of non-Muslim Religious Minorities in Turkey

Abstract

Democratic conditionality has been one of the main drivers of accession Europeanisation and a foreign policy instrument of the European Union’s democracy promotion in third countries through its enlargement policy. In an era of rising autocratisation, however, the normative influence of the EU is increasingly questioned as to whether it continues to be a driver of democratisation. Focusing on one of Turkey’s Christian communities, Armenians, this paper aims at analysing the impact of EU candidacy period between 1999-2022 on the minority policies of Turkey. It employs the concepts of counter-conduct and governmentality to analyse the dynamics through which the Turkish government seeks to uproot and reverse the Europeanisation in minority rights, and how this counter-conduct works in the case of Armenian community.

Keywords

• turkey
• minority rights
• europeanisation
• de-europeanisation
• counter-conduct
• governmentality