While a multi-party political system was introduced in Turkey in 1946, political liberalism was the missing part of Turkey’s democratic consolidation. Turkish political culture valued submissiveness toward state authority and did not favour citizen participation. This study evaluates the impact that Turkey’s EU-motivated political reform had on civil society, state-society relations, the role of religion in politics and national identity. This leads to an assessment of whether Turkish political culture has become more participant and democratic.
According to Cem Özdemir, Member of European Parliament (The Greens/EFA), "the author gives an admirable, comprehensive and highly illuminative insight into the historical development of Turkish political culture with a focus on the impacts of EU-Turkey relations. This book is key to understand today's Turkish political and societal structures."

“In the debate on whether Islam is soluble in the liberal democratic tradition of the West there is often too much rhetoric and too little substance,” says Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Director of the European Studies Centre, St Antony's College, University of Oxford, and University Lecturer in International Relations. “This timely and important book remedies this state of affairs and more through a thorough investigation of Turkey's political culture focusing on its state, tradition and transformation and their gradual adaptation to EU norms. It is a must read for anyone interested in EU-Turkey affairs, be they advocates or critics of Turkish accession.”

Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, fluent in several languages, among them Turkish, and a Columbia University graduate, is a lecturer at the Department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies, University of Athens, and a Research Fellow an the Hellenic Foundation of European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).