By bridging ‘rational-institutionalist’ and ‘constructivist’ accounts, this chapter aims to explore the impact the European Union (EU) has had and, most importantly, is expected to have on the management and/or transformation of the long-standing Greek-Turkish territorial dispute. The main argument is that the EU could play a promising role and change the interests and/or the identity scripts of the conflict parties if two particular conditions are fulfilled. The first refers to the strength of the norms that the EU exerts on the conflict parties and the legitimacy and credibility the EU enjoys vis-à-vis the parties in conflict. The second refers to the ‘type of socialization’ the EU mechanisms produce. In other words, it does matter whether the institutional mechanisms - by which the EU seeks to attain domestic salience and legitimacy - are directed only towards the conflict parties’ elites, or towards the conflict parties’ elites as well as their publics and societies, as a ‘thorough’ internalisation of institutional rules and norms, and not only by the elites, is a crucial determinant for the positive transformation of the Greek-Turkish dispute.
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Tsakonas, P.J. (2009). How Can the European Union Transform the Greek–Turkish Conflict?. In: Arvanitopoulos, C. (eds) Turkey's Accession to the European Union. The Constantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy Series on European and International Affairs. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88197-1_11
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