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Different Factors Stressed By Different Actors: EU Enlargement Policy and U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Turkey

This thesis studies the differences between the European Unions (EUs) Enlargement Policy toward Turkey and the United States (U.S.s) Foreign Policy toward Turkey. Both actors have a strong relationship with Turkey but for different reasons. Turkey is a candidate country to the EU and is in the process of accession negotiations. It is also a key ally to the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners and its secular while Muslim identity, location, use as an energy transport route, and strong democracy make Turkey particularly important. In this thesis I argue that enlargement policy and foreign policy toward Turkey are shaped by three factors, geostrategic interests, culture, and economics, but the EU and U.S. place different stress on each factor. This is based on distinctions between the EU and U.S. including that enlargement policy consists of external, internal, and bilateral elements whereas foreign policy only includes external and bilateral elements. The EU approach toward Turkey via enlargement policy focuses strongly on all three factors: geostrategic interests, culture, and economics. Each factor is analyzed with respect to Turkey by each EU member-state, making member-states decisions dependent on how membership will affect Turkey (externally), how Turkey will affect the EU as a whole (internally) and how Turkey will affect the member-states themselves (bilaterally). However, the U.S. foreign policy approach toward Turkey is constructed mainly on geostrategic interests. This difference in the factors shaping enlargement policy and foreign policy is rooted in a distinction between the EU and U.S.: while Turkey could possibly accede to the EU, making it a full member of the Union, no such membership could ever be attained with the U.S.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-05162010-041754
Date18 May 2010
CreatorsWeintraub, Carrie Lisa
ContributorsGerald Shuster, Achilleas Mitsos, Ronald Linden, Alberta Sbragia
PublisherUniversity of Pittsburgh
Source SetsUniversity of Pittsburgh
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-05162010-041754/
Rightsrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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