Tracing Euroscepticism back: Turkish public opinion and the left between 1963-1971

Turkey-European Economic Community (EEC) relations started with the Turkish application for association in 1959 and the signing of the Ankara Agreement in 1963. This thesis examines the early public discussions in Turkey on the nature and aims of European integration, the EEC, and the Turkey-EEC relations between the Ankara Agreement and the Additional Protocol, with a specific focus on Turkish leftist thought. It is found that apart from the milestones like the signing of the Ankara Agreement or the Additional Protocol, Turkish public opinion and politicians showed less interest in the EEC and Turkey-EEC relations. Turkey's rapprochement with the organization was usually welcomed based on identity-based views and the mentality of bloc politics of the Cold War. More nuanced and critical voices in mainstream public opinion began to be heard in the final years of the 1960s as Turkey and the EEC were negotiating the Additional Protocol. The leftist intellectuals, however, were vocal and critical about the EEC and Turkey's possible integration with the organization from the outset. The thesis aims to examine views of Turkish public opinion on Turkey's foreign policy and the country's place in the world by focusing on leftist periodicals and their views on the EEC and Turkey-EEC relations. As the Turkish left labelled the EEC as a Western-capitalist institution having imperialist, neo-colonialist, and monopolist agendas, it is demonstrated that leftist opposition to the EEC set one of the early examples of Euroscepticism in Turkey.