Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans
Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Marmara Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Anabilim Dalı, Türkiye
Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2006
Tezin Dili: İngilizce
Öğrenci: MİRNA DEMİRBEY
Danışman: Armağan Emre Çakır
Özet:
Democratic governance is accepted as the guarantor of peace, stability, rule of law, public accountability, legitimacy, and transparency both across international and national arenas. However, it is highly controversial to come up with a definite explanation of the term democracy regarding its historical evolution in the international system which is composed of international organizations, states, NGOs. In this regard, the EU as a supranational and intergovernmental structure, its authority is distributed across various institutions, agents, NGOs. All of the components that form the EU affect its decision-making process. Therefore, to understand the system of governance in the EU embodying distinct national interests and share of sovereignty, one must elaborate on its civilian power and decision-making process. The EU as a promoter of democracy, rule of law, human rights in the international system, in order to increase its legitimacy in its relations with third countries should solve its claimed democratic deficit stemming out of lack of participation of citizens in the decision-making process of the Union itself and need for more power relocation to the EU Parliament which is the sole determiner of control over the decisions taken by the executive. In fact, although the EU Parliament is granted more rights with the introduction of several Treaties, this does not serve for sufficiency to be able to acquire consent of the European public. On one hand, both the democratic deficit and civilian power of the EU based on its ability to perform diplomatic relations in the international system affect the Union?s influence to render itself as an anchor to stimulate reform process in the candidate countries. On the other hand, although the Copenhagen Criteria provides the EU with a declination regarding its sanctioning and incitement policies, the absence of a clear definition for and guidance of democracy and ethnic minority rights affect negatively the penetration capacity of the Union in international affairs. The more democratic the EU renders regarding its extent of public accountability, transparency and legitimacy, the more credibility it would maintain. As in the case of the relations between Turkey and the EU, the EU continues to use its membership conditionality strategy to encourage the commitment of the country to its reform process. This has been the case in the previous enlargements including the CEE states, through conditional offer of incentives such as candidate status, financial aid, date for start of negotiations, fullmembership and through imposition of sanctions such as suspension of negotiations, withdrawal of financial aid when principles of democracy, human rights are violated. As an example, since the 1999 Helsinki Summit, through the granting of candidacy status to Turkey, the uneven relations have been overcome and Turkey has accelerated adoption of various constitutional amendments. Today, with the abolition of death penalty, the improvements made regarding the ethnic minority and human rights, civil-military relations in line with the EU conditions, Turkey has started the accession negotiations with the EU. With this respect, the EU?s consistency in its relations with the country would help maintain its legitimacy, in turn, credibility which serves as an incentive to encourage reform and policy changes in a given country.