Within the last 20 years, the issues like democratization and promotion of human rights have become so crucial topics in the literature of the social sciences that almost entire academic field has tented to examine the dynamics of these issues. Such an examination becomes much more important if one considers the rising influences of the international actors like the EU in promoting democracy and human rights from outside; even if it means a radical attack to the traditional notion of sovereignty that has been defined under the hegemony of the modern polity called as nation-state.

 

In that sense, the recent relations of Turkey and the EU have gradually evolved to a situation of exemplifying such an important development in the international politics today. This example particularly indicates the transformation of the Turkish political system, which has mainly fuelled by the growing prospect of the EU membership especially after the 1999 Helsinki decision. The developments in the post-Helsinki era have proved that the monist structure of the nation-state is more open than ever since to the influences coming from the international arena. In fact, with these developments, the transformation is occurring not only in the sovereignty conception of the nation-state directed to outside, but also within the internal political structure of the state by forcing it towards a more transparent and pluralist type of governance.

 

Within this general framework, this paper constitutes an attempt to analyse the dynamics of the notion of democratization from outside by concentrating on the case study of Turkey – EU relations. Knowing the fact that the nature of the issue is too wide to examine and accepting that the notion of democratization is multi-dimensional in nature, the paper applies the theoretical tool of membership conditionality, as one of the ways for democracy promotion by an external actor, to the relations between the EU and Turkey. Even in more specific terms, the paper deals with the issue of membership conditionality with a special emphasis on the human rights as it has become sine qua non for the membership. Therefore, the central objective in this paper is to understand the dynamics of transformation in Turkish human rights regime with reference to the theoretical tool of membership conditionality, which has evolved within the EU’s enlargement history. 

 

In order to make a comprehensive and coherent analysis of such a transformation, it is vital to construct the model of membership conditionality in its theoretical and historical context. Thus, in the first part, the paper analyzes the theory of conditionality by specifically dealing with its two variations. Then, the historical evolution of the membership conditionality of the EU is touched upon to comprehend the context in which the respect for fundamental rights and freedoms has become the essential conditions for the membership. Later, in the second part, the history of the relations of Turkey and the EU is analyzed by using the already explained theory of human rights conditionality. By doing so, the aim is to understand the reasons of the recent transformation of the Turkish legal and political structure to embrace the philosophy of human rights. Towards the end of the second part, the paper makes a critical analysis of the problems inherent to the human rights conditionality model in the relations between Turkey and the EU.

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