Changing Perceptions of Europe in a Changing Turkey: Analysing Identity Change Among the Turkish Public

Much of the recent literature on Turkish foreign policy in general and EU-Turkey relations in particular focus on whether Turkey is turning away from the 'West' and offers reasons for Turkey's deteriorating relations with the EU. An area that is left relatively underresearched concerns the way in which Turkey's worsening relations with the EU and its foreign policy orientations under the AKP governments impact on the changing perceptions of Europe and the West among the Turkish public and the Turkish policy makers. This paper is a part of a larger qualitative research project which aims to undercover the dynamics behind the change and/or continuity among perceptions and identifications with Europe through a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of texts produced by focus group discussions and interviews with selected policy makers. The main research questions concern the ways in which discursive constructions of Turkish national identity currently relate to Europe and the normative/identity/interest based dynamics behind identity change and continuity in attitudes towards Europe among the Turkish public.