‘Cosmopolitan Europe’ and the EU-Turkey question: the politics of a ‘common destiny’

Abstract: This paper assesses cosmopolitanism in practice in Europe via an engagement with the 'EU-Turkey question', analysing the extent to which a 'cosmopolitan outlook' is emerging within Turkey and in European reactions to Turkey and the ways in which this plays out in the face of important political opposition in both settings. It argues that in the context of Turkey's internal politics and the European Union's (EU's) consideration of Turkey's candidature, an essentialist view of identity is constitutive of hostile relations between the EU and Turkey and within Turkish and European societies. Conversely, the adoption of a critical and reflexive cosmopolitan outlook as theory and political practice - examples of which are to be found in the Turkish political reform process and some of the recent practice of the European Commission - offers the best hope for a cosmopolitan Europe inclusive of cosmopolitan Turkey.

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