Europeanization and de-Europeanization of Turkish asylum and migration policies

Abstract

This chapter discusses Turkey's efforts to align and then de-align its migration and asylum policies and laws with the European Union. It argues that the Europeanization of migration and asylum policies and laws corresponds to the internalization of a rights-based approach by state and societal actors in Turkey up until the beginning of the civil war in Syria. The period of the war corresponds to the ascent of the process of de-Europeanization of Turkey that has resulted in the framing of migration and asylum policies at the national and local levels in cultural and religious terms. The chapter argues that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has successfully accommodated the Syrian refugees on the basis of a religious rhetoric called 'Ansar spirit'. © The Author(s) 2021.