The impact of European Union membership conditionality of human rights in Turkey

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Human rights abuses have been one of the fundamental obstacles impeding Turkey's membership in the European Union. The country has had a dismal human rights record because of the center-periphery conflict and the strong state tradition. Despite the supposed impact of conditions imposed by the European Union in altering human rights record of the country, Turkey continues to suffer from human rights violations. I hypothesize that European Union membership conditionality has not worked as intended in Turkey due to Turkey's political culture and the EU's perceived lack of credibility. Using time series analysis of the years 1976-2007, I seek to understand the impact European Union membership conditionality and other relevant factors have had on human rights in Turkey. To this end, I test the impact of several influential predictors of human rights, such as economic growth, popular threat, population density and the level of democracy. My empirical findings show that domestic conditions in Turkey rather than EU membership conditionality shape the environment for human rights in the country.