Lobbying activities during the EU membership process of Turkey

Lobbying activities of different actors to the EU institutions have increased over time in parallel with delegation of power from member countries to the EU. A broad range of groups organize lobbying activities to the EU institutions. In this thesis, taking a social constructivist approach, I aim to explore the influence of a candidate country's interest groups' lobbying activities, where I look at Turkey as a case study. Due to its EU accession process having reached nearly 20 years, Turkey is a unique case. Based on a typological classification of two types of groups, I focus on the lobbying activities of four Turkish NGOs and two political parties between 1997 and 2017. Taking a qualitative approach, the study consists of examination of archival data such as interest groups' activity reports, press releases, electoral manifestos as well as findings from in-depth interviews with representatives of interest groups, bureaucrats, and politicians from EU institutions and relevant experts. The findings of the study indicate that lobbying activities of these actors are negatively influenced by fluctuations of Turkey-EU relations. However, the following groups below are less affected by these fluctuations on their lobbying activities. These are; the groups that focus on their own field of activities at technical level rather than the accession process of Turkey and the ones establish stronger ties with umbrella organizations at supranational level. The findings suggest that NGOs are more effective than political parties with respect to lobbying activities on political orbit of the EU.