Rhetorical Action and Turkey's Europeanization

This study aims to introduce the Turkey's Europeanization, within the framework of "rhetorical action." It seems the "rhetorical action" that means using an organized collection of claims, which aims to persuade public audience and/or foreign and domestic opponents to accept actors’ preference and/or de-legitimize those of opponents, has played an important role in the process of the Turkey's Europeanization in adapting to the norms of the European Union. Indeed, in spite of the importance of "strategic action" and "communicative action", respectively means “utility maximization” and “reasoned understanding about valid behavior” in the Turkey's Europeanization, With the presence and continuous engagement of rhetorical action in Turkey, even after reducing the credibility of the European Union in the country's social and political sphere, and weakening the EU conditionality, reforms related to the process of accession to the European Union have more or less persisted. In this view, both the ruling elite and the opposition parties, along with civil society and the media, use "rhetorical action" in the sense of strategic use of normative arguments based on European norms and de-legitimization of opponents by these norms.