Pavel Šaradín – författare

The question of Turkish membership in the European Union is highly controversial and subject to many misperceptions and misunderstandings on both sides. This book examines the politics of EU accession which have evolved during the expansion of the EU, from more procedural conditions to provisions of substantive democracy. With a particular focus on the challenges Turkey faces to join the EU, the authors examine the experiences of the newly-democratised and acceded Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to provide insight and to identify the best possible solutions. Combining the Turkish and Central European perspectives in one volume, and using a social constructivist approach, the authors address issues including Euroscepticism, EU absorption capacity, women’s rights, democratisation, Turkish Kamalism, the desecuritisation of Turkish politics and the problem of Northern Cyprus. This volume establishes the challenges the EU, its member states and the candidate countries need to face and successfully address in order to contribute to both their democratization and the European integration process.This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, Turkish politics and international politics.

The question of Turkish membership in the European Union is highly controversial and subject to many misperceptions and misunderstandings on both sides. This book examines the politics of EU accession which have evolved during the expansion of the EU, from more procedural conditions to provisions of substantive democracy. With a particular focus on the challenges Turkey faces to join the EU, the authors examine the experiences of the newly-democratised and acceded Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to provide insight and to identify the best possible solutions. Combining the Turkish and Central European perspectives in one volume, and using a social constructivist approach, the authors address issues including Euroscepticism, EU absorption capacity, women’s rights, democratisation, Turkish Kamalism, the desecuritisation of Turkish politics and the problem of Northern Cyprus. This volume establishes the challenges the EU, its member states and the candidate countries need to face and successfully address in order to contribute to both their democratization and the European integration process.This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, Turkish politics and international politics.

The book aims to complement the existing research on democratic innovations mainly by making unique comparative analyses of the democratic innovations at the local level in selected European post-communist countries, i.e. the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Democratic innovations can help overcome political apathy, decreased confidence in democracy and improve efficiency of governance. We traditionally consider cities and municipalities to be cradles of democracy and connect them with deliberations on the further development of democratic theory and political practice. We therefore argue that the local level is a suitable arena and laboratory for both changes of institutional settings within the traditional model of representative democracy, and the structural changes, which concern changing relations between local representatives and citizens.