The rise of Islamophobia in Europe and its impact on Turkey-European Union relations

Islamophobia is a concept that is influential in the integration and enlargement process of the European Union. Migration, global financial crisis, "Islamist" terrorist attacks by religious radical terrorist groups, refugee crisis and the rise of far-right populist parties in the EU integration process have made Islam and Muslims considered to be a security issue in European countries. This study aims to discuss the rise of Islamophobia in Europe and its impacts on Turkey-EU relations. Although there is no identity criterion in the EU's enlargement strategy based on conditionality approach, Turkey's religious and cultural identity has an adverse impact on Turkey-EU relations. This issue is put under research via discussing the voting rates, number of seats, party programmes, slogans and leader's commitments of the far right populist parties in four European countries, namely Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands. The findings of the study, which was structured around constructivist and poststructuralist approach, reveal that rising islamophobia in Europe has influenced Turkey's EU membership process in two ways. In the first place, islamophobia deepens the opposition towards EU's further enlargement. The second is that the culturalist and civilization rhetoric of Europe's rising far right populist parties towards Turkey's membership process construct the "cultural other" identity of Turkey in the membership process. In this respect, according to this study, the rise of islamophobia which was triggered by migration and refugee crisis in Europe, global financial crisis, the rise of far right populist parties and "Islamist" terror attacks influence the political preferences of the member states and this hinders the Turkey-EU relations not only with respect to the formal accession negotiation process but also the cultural perspective, as the focus of the study.