This paper contextualizes the phenomenon of Europeanization into processes of modernization by particularly assessing the Turkish case. It reveals that the current scholarship on Europeanization departs from a similar conception of modernization with that of the 1950s’ evolutionist modernization school. In both, modernization is mainly a matter of technicality and institutional adaptation, realized stage by stage through the import of Western institutions into the domestic structure. However, this conception of development and modernization is far from exploring transformative impact of Europe particularly in non-West European societies. To comprehend better socio-political transformations induced by Europe, a new theoretical move is needed: associating the implications of Europeanization in societies with their political modernity.
I suggest that in countries where modernization has emerged and developed as a state-sponsored project, Europeanization-globalization opens up new spaces for a paradigmatic shift in their modernity. This often translates into a transition from a state-centric, monolithic modernization to a more pluralistic, participatory paradigm. This is the case particularly in southern and eastern European countries, where modernization has been materialized and instrumentalized for political domination by a very strong bureaucratic class. The West European model has extensively influenced modernization and nation-building processes in south European states including Turkey since the 19th century. For the Ottoman-Turkish modernising elite, modernization was instrumental in being incorporated into the European civilization.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Europeanization was utilised by them to justify comprehensive reforms for state-sponsored modernization in the country. Particularly from late 1990s on, EU-ization/Europeanization created new spaces for the actors demanding transition from an exclusionary, state-oriented modernization to a more inclusive and pluralist paradigm. Yet, the recent retreat of Europeanization as a normative-political context and reversals in the EU-required reforms certainly cast a long shadow over the prospects of grounding Turkish political modernization on a more pluralist and participatory basis.
