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This article explores what conditions or what specific issues lead to shifts in the positioning of the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetci Hareket Partisi, MHP) towards Turkey's European Union (EU) membership goal. The article first examines the MHP's background and characteristics and compares it with similar parties in Western Europe. Subsequently, the MHP's EU stance during 1999-2002 and in the post-2002 period is discussed. The article concludes that ideology matters for the MHP but that shifts in degrees of Euroscepticisim during particular periods can be explained by strategic considerations of the MHP, which respond to the party's electoral gains or losses, its position in the party political spectrum and whether it is in government, in opposition or outside parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main conditions for post-communist countries to attain membership of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was that national laws should be brought into line with international human rights standards, with special attention to political rights for minority groups. In the case of the Baltic States, the national elites played a major role in the process leading to more liberal citizenship laws towards the Russian-speaking minority. However, was the changing of formal institutions a manifestation of a liberalization of the national elites' orientations towards this minority? The article argues that instrumental elite strategies explain why nationalist attitudes seem to prevail both before and after membership, despite less restrictive laws and internationally-orientated elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europeanization -- as the process of standardization of public policies in order to provide a common ground for the new modus operandi in politics and of the polity itself -- requires an overall reshaping of the political discourse in the acceding countries during the process of EU accession. This means the reshaping of the basic political concepts and political paradigms under way in one country. Security is one of the main concepts upon which the existence of a polity is based. The way in which security is conceived determines the political strategy, political tactics and political activities pertinent to the goal set up and formulated in a security concept. Croatia, as an acceding country, needs to refurbish its basic political values, and security certainly falls within this frame. Croatia adopted its National Security Strategy in 2002 and this security concept was an obvious product of concrete circumstances, experiences and political discourse of the time. As the author asserts, the concept of security laid down in this security strategy belongs to an obsolete frame of mind, arising from a traumatic decade of ethnic wars, nationalism and a controversial transition. Croatia has emerged from the post-conflict traumatic experience and the period of an authoritarian transition, in which the adaptation to new values was slow and turbulent. The National Security Strategy of the Republic of Croatia reflects these contradictions and controversies in its society and its international environment. This work claims that the national security concept of Croatia relied greatly on the classical approach to state security and did not reflect the latest development in the field of strategic thinking. As an example, the author points to the gap between the Croatian national security concept and its basic values and the concept of human security, as laid down in the UNDP basic documents on human development. In addition, it did not reflect the concept of cooperative security that requires from a nation to work in an international context in order to avoid transnational threats. Croatia needs the Europeanization of the security discourse and the reformulation of a new National Security Strategy, pertinent to its membership in the NATO and in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the negotiation process for Turkey's accession to the EU, the author delves into the country's current situation and its condition as a bridge. She focuses on the question of Islam and modernity, taking as her point of departure the example of Kayseri, a city and region in Central Anatolia, which is dynamic and productive without having lost its cultural and religious values for this reason. Among these values, she highlights an obstacle which distances the country from an economic rapprochement with the EU, namely the role of women in the economy, although she underscores the idea that everything indicates that this necessary change could occur soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Might Turkey be thought of as a model of democratic Government for the rest of the Islamic world? Can Turkey be a lighthouse of democracy in the Islamic world? The objective of this work is to try, to answer these questions, and for this it focuses on two interrelated factors, which the author believes to be fundamental, in order to try to understand Turkey's domestic policy: "nationalism" and "religion", two elements that have been the object of strong debate in Turkey at the turn of the century, in the framework of the two last elections, held in April 1999 and November 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]