Turkey and the Balkans: bringing the Europeanisation/ De-Europeanisation nexus into question

This article is about the main framework and the rationale of the special issue, which deals with Turkey’s increasing ethno-religious, pragmatic and complicated involvement and activism in the Balkans since 2002, under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP). The main focus of the Issue is how the intersectionality between domestic and foreign policy has played an important role in Turkey’s recent relations with the Balkan countries and how the Europeanization process influences this relationality. The overall claim is that religion, ethnicity and kin politics as indispensable components of identity politics, have the capacity to transform Turkey’s foreign policy attitudes as well as the orientations of the Balkan countries and the impact of the processes of Europeanization and de-Europeanization on the relationship between Turkey and the Balkans needs to be included into the analysis.