Europe and Turkey: identities in evolution. An analytical literature review

Abstract

This research aims to offer a valid answer to the question of how Turks and Europeans perceived each other in cultural and identity terms throughout history. With this purpose, it makes a thorough analytical review of the extant scholarly literature on identity relations between Turkey and Europe. There is an evident lack of scholarly attention on the evolution of mutual representations comparatively in the long durée. Most scholarly works focus on specific periods of time and investigate either how Turks view Europe or visa-versa. This systematic review provides the basis for an evolutionary analysis of mutual identity representations between Turkey and Europe over more than a two-hundred-year period. The period under focus starts with the French Revolution (1789) triggering intensive identity debates between Ottomans and Europeans and lasts until mid-2010s when bilateral relations between Turkey and the European Union went into disarray. This long period has been divided into four shorter periods each starting and ending with a remarkable event in world politics or bilateral relations. The study examines each period in relation to four focal issues, namely, nationalism, civilization, status in international society, and state-citizen relations generating intensive identity discussions in both Turkey and Europe. The article first presents the key findings of the relevant literature on European representations of Turkey and on Turkish representations of Europe in the four historical periods. Then it scrutinizes the extant literature on each period with respect to the four focal issues. Overall, the study, through a comprehensive literature review, demonstrates the ways in which mutual identity representations in Turkey and Europe have been contested over a two-hundred-year period.