Turkish Public Support for the European Union: Its individual-level determinants and association with EU-Turkey relations

Public support for the EU in Turkey has been widely recognised as one of the main drivers of the improvement in EU-Turkey relations, especially in the early 2000s. Although the existing literature mostly focuses on the individual-level determinants of the public support for EU, it somewhat fails to provide a comprehensive analysis of one of the most notable features of this support: its volatility. This volatility has been qualitatively associated with the oscillations in EU-Turkey relations, however the formal evidence is lacking in this direction. In this thesis, using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, we provide a unified framework to examine the support levels for the EU both in the cross section and over time. We first put forward the most notable individual-level determinants of public support by leveraging on the existing literature. Then, we present an overview of the EU-Turkey relations in order to identify the milestones in the last decade, which may have...Show morePublic support for the EU in Turkey has been widely recognised as one of the main drivers of the improvement in EU-Turkey relations, especially in the early 2000s. Although the existing literature mostly focuses on the individual-level determinants of the public support for EU, it somewhat fails to provide a comprehensive analysis of one of the most notable features of this support: its volatility. This volatility has been qualitatively associated with the oscillations in EU-Turkey relations, however the formal evidence is lacking in this direction. In this thesis, using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, we provide a unified framework to examine the support levels for the EU both in the cross section and over time. We first put forward the most notable individual-level determinants of public support by leveraging on the existing literature. Then, we present an overview of the EU-Turkey relations in order to identify the milestones in the last decade, which may have affected the support levels. Finally, we conduct a regression analysis on a pooled sample of Standard Eurobarometer surveys between 2012-2019, which enables us to disentangle the effect of time factor from individual characteristics. Our results reveal that the revitalisation efforts of EU-Turkey relations and increasing cooperation did not translate into an increase in the Turkish public support. However, the public opinion took a positive turn after the constitutional referendum in 2017. On the determinant level, utilitarian considerations remain one of the most important determinants for support, with a growing importance of political stances (left-right).Show less

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Turkish Public Support for the European Union: Its individual-level determinants and association with EU-Turkey relations