The European Union’s Approach to Minority Rights and Its Impact on the Development of Minority Rights Protection in Greece and Turkey
Tez Türü: Doktora
Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: The University of Nottingham, Siyaset Bilimi, Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler, Birleşik Krallık
Tez Danışmanı: Lauren Mclaren,Paul Heywood
Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2008
Tezin Dili: Türkçe
Özet:
The issue of minority rights continues to be a critical matter for a successful transition
to democracy as the protection of minorities is often regarded as a key factor for
sustaining domestic peace and stability. Thus, the Europeanisation of minority rights
gained momentum with the growing democratisation trends across Europe since the
early 1990s. The contribution of institutions to various democratisation processes has
been particularly important in putting the minority rights issue on the European
agenda and pushing states for the acceptance of common standards. This thesis
suggests the increasing involvement of institutions as a key explanatory factor of the
emerging trend in Europe of adopting various forms of multiculturalism and minority
rights. Accordingly, this thesis focuses on the European Union (EU) and attempts to
analyse its influence mechanism on the policy choices of a member and a candidate
state: Greece and Turkey. The rights of minorities did not appear as a major policy
concern in the EU's agenda before 1993. However, a substantive policy shift came
with the inclusion of political conditions concerning minority rights protection in the
1993 Copenhagen accession criteria, initiating the EU's emerging minority rights
mechanism, which later became a key component of the institution's democratisation
programme in candidate states. Yet the mechanism's entire focus on candidate states
has been under scrutiny as member states are not equally challenged by the EU in the
area of minority rights. This thesis explains this internal inconsistency within the EU
framework, highlighting policy patterns and shifts concerning minority rights from a
new institutionalist perspective. The conclusions indicate that the recognition of
cultural plurality is increasingly becoming popular amongst European states. The EU
appears to be an effective contributor to the democratisation process by challenging
its prospective members in the area of minority rights. Even though its pressures are
less evident on member states, the latter are also challenged by related processes of
democratisation and Europeanisation of minority rights. In the case of Greece,
breaking away from the legacy of past policies in the area of minority rights occurred
during a significant period where the mounting pressures of EU membership became
more evident through the country's democratisation process. Turkey's current status,
on the other hand, provides a dynamic example of understanding the impacts of EU
accession talks on the country’s democratisation process with particular reference to
the area of minority rights.