Enabling and Constraining: A Study on Possibilities of Agents in the EU-Polity during the Turkish Accession Process from 1999 until 2013

Abstract

Even though many scholars have paid attention to the Turkish accession process to the European Union (EU), many authors have tried to explain what is not possible within the polity's systemic structure with regard to hampering Turkey's entry. However, if EU agents simply follow rules, how to account for the daunting delays, the double standards or the newly established obstacles that Turkey needs to master before it accedes? This thesis combines Structuration Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis to put the possibilities of agents into focus again.