Policy Entrepreneurship, Policy Opportunism, and EU Conditionality: The AKP and TUSIAD Experience in Turkey

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ugur, Mehmet; Yankaya, Dilek
• 署名单位: University of Greenwich
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0491.2008.00414.x
• 发表日期: 2008
• 关键词: politics

摘要

This article examines the relationship between European Union (EU) conditionality for membership and policy entrepreneurship in a candidate country. In Turkey, EU conditionality opened a window of opportunity for policy reform by lowering the political costs of controversial reforms. The study demonstrates that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD) responded to a window of opportunity by advocating a series of reforms that represented a bold challenge to the traditionally reform-averse and Euro-skeptic political culture in Turkey. The study finds a difference in the duration of both actors' commitment to reforms. To explain this difference, we distinguish between policy entrepreneurs, who are actors with a long time horizon, and policy opportunists, who are actors with a short time horizon. The policy implication of this finding is that the European Commission's expectations of the AKP government to deliver the necessary reforms may be too optimistic.