Constructing Turkey's European Identity: Discourses in the Council of Europe's Consultative Assembly, 1949-1963

Abstract

This dissertation examines how Turkey’s identity was constructed as European in debates in the Council of Europe’s (COE) Assembly in the early years of its existence (1949-1963). With Turkey as a member of the COE since 1949, this study takes the opportunity to examine a discursive field in the midst of which Turkish delegates participated in debates about the future of Europe, about common values and common tasks. How they used these debates to argue for Turkey’s Europeanness is of central interest here. The analysis, therefore, focuses on Turkish delegates as social architects and includes speeches concerning Turkey by non-Turkish speakers as well. The aim is to reconstruct the discursive practices that helped represent Turkey as a European country. The dissertation also aims to identify the images of Europe constructed through these representations of Turkey as European. Results from this study contribute to the research field of Turkish-European relations, the history of European integration, and to theoretical considerations of collective identity constructions.