The Europeanization of Security and Turkey’s Membership of the European Union

Abstract

Europeanization is a relatively new concept, the roots of the idea of the Europeanization of security in Western Europe go back to the early days of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and became manifest after the demise of the USSR, which marked the end of the Cold War. Therefore, the process of European integration can also be seen as a Europeanization of the security culture of European Union (EU) member states. This Europeanization is a transition from the classical perception of security, based on state-centric high poli-tics (achieving security by military power), to a modern one, that is, giving priority to low politics (achieving security by non-military power, through economic and political integration). Hence, the Euro-peanization of security is actually a process of de-securitization which eliminates security and insecurity concerns from perception. However, non-military security problems and dynamics can also be present in that de-securitization.
By contrast, the Turkish state’s security culture, which takes its roots from the founders of the Republic, gives priority to high - ra-ther than low - politics. The Turkish state’s elite are inclined to look at issues through the lenses of security or insecurity. This Turkish state outlook is a consequence of its securitization tradition in which security problems having no military element in their resolution are considered inferior in importance to military ones. Acknowledge-ment of the contradictory natures of the linear transition of Europe-anization of security in Western Europe and traditional Turkish se-curity perceptions is crucial in order to grasp one of the main under-lying reasons behind Turkey’s continuing exclusion from the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).