Impact of European Unioin on civil - military relations in Greece and Turkey

Date

2010

Author

Demirci, Berat

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Studying on civil-military relations requires a multi-dimensional approach that analyzes both domestic and external factors. In this study which aims to compare the civil-military relations in Greece and Turkey and to indicate how European Union re-shapes the nature of these relations, the emphasis will be given to two important factors. The domestic factor is democratization processes of the states in question, that depend not only on domestic politics, but also the international environment. The other factor is an external one: the EU as a promoter of democracy through civilianization in politics. The general picture of the nature of civil-military relations in Greece and Turkey indicates a parallelism during 1950s and 60s. However, the 1970s, characterized by centrifugal tendencies of states in Cold War conditions as well as the EU accession perspective, has brought about an alteration in the role of military in politics in Greece, whereas Turkey did not do much towards reducing the role of army. Since late 1990s, EU has been the prominent goal in Turkish Foreign Policy. The conditions for membership include democratization through civilianization and declination of military’s role in policy making. Making a projection of how EU will influence civil-military relations in Turkey might be possible in the light of the outcome of this study that utilizes the Greek case as an example.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12611433/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/19252

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Theses