Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ESA 12th Conference Differences, Inequalities and Sociological Imagination, Praha, Çek Cumhuriyeti, 25 - 28 Ağustos 2015, (Özet Bildiri)
Turkey’s process of membership to the European Union, which started with the partnership agreement signed with the European Economic Community in 1963, has been continuing despite disruptions and interruptions faced from time to time. Nevertheless, this process has generally been a policy conducted under the leadership of political powers, rather than a communal expectation. The issue of membership to the EU, a current extension of the Westernisation movement that has been on the agenda for a couple of centuries, has been imposed to the public with “sudden and unexpected” policies, so to say. On the other hand, sociological aspect of this membership process has largely been ignored, and current problems are only approached from political aspect. In this context, the purpose of this study is to take Turkey’s EU membership process into consideration within the framework of concepts of identity and culture, and to subject the problems faced in this process to a sociological analysis. Today, the EU is not only an economic association but also quite a comprehensive project having social-cultural-political aspects, and one that provides many innovations in many aspects for member countries and citizens of those countries. Therefore, analysis of Turkish identity and Turkish culture, which are quite different than those of the EU countries, and assessment of roles played by these factors in membership process constitute an extremely important issue for truly understanding the process and for making consistent determinations regarding the process.