The issue of migration management and the need for migration governance have become more salient in light of the recent political and social changes occurring in the Middle East and North Africa. While trying to devise policy responses to the pressing needs, the EU undoubtedly relies on the cooperation of third countries to regulate migration flows. This paper seeks to pinpoint Turkey’s changing position in the Eurocentric international migration regime as an immigrant as well as a transit and emigrant country. It will attempt to capture, understand and contextualize the institutional/legal/discursive changes taking place in Turkey parallel to the EU accession process and the requirement to align with the EU acquis as well the need to respond to the pressing challenges exerted by international norms. There is also revived interest from European scholars to understand the Turkish context since as a candidate country and in light of the Arab Spring, Turkey can no more be confined to the external dimension of the EU migration policy but will be incorporated into the ‘pan-European migration regime’. Driving from rationalist institutionalism and sociological/constructivist institutionalism and governance, this paper attempts to investigate to what extent Turkey’s migration and asylum policies are in line with that of the EU and to unravel how far and to what extent the EU accession process has an impact on the reform of Turkish migration policy-making with a particular focus on visa politics as a form of ‘policing at the distance’. It will focus on the “new” visa regime of Turkey in the light of recent steps taken and it will debate Turkey’s migration regime vis á vis EU’s migration management in terms of instruments available, approaches adopted and routes taken. How does EU conditionality influence Europeanization and securitization of migration policies in Turkey in general and visa policy in particular?
