Sometimes major revolutions take place quietly, their importance obscured by the hubbub of more dramatic events. Only with time does the shift become perceptible. Turkey has changed, but not because of a war or a major crisis; it has changed because of the emerging Anatolian bourgeoisie with its EU ambitions. The catalysts for this change have been the February 28 coup of 1997, the 2001 economic crisis and the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership. The EU process has played an important role in the speed and focus of the political reforms since 1999. However, the impact of the process is very much conditioned by the dynamics of Turkish domestic politics, especially the commitments of the major civil society organizations, as well as the governing party's commitment to the EU process. Although many scholars tend to explain the current wave of democratization in terms of the Copenhagen criteria, I tend to treat external factors as facilitators rather than direct causes of this ongoing democratization of the state and society in Turkey, and I stress the role of opportunity spaces in the constitution of a greater democratic and more civic consciousness in Turkey. This book also explains the mechanism through which and under what conditions the EU process has shaped Turkish domestic politics.

The current transformation of Turkish politics is an outcome of the interplay between internal and external events. It is the product of a bizarre blend of Islamic tradition and EU norms, acting on local and global policies.