EU Conditionality and Minority Rights

Minority rights protection has been one of the significant litmus tests for the success of EU conditionality. In Romania, the accession process helped transform key minority policies and improved the records whereas in Turkey, the traditional minority policies still linger despite the small changes in early 2000s. The book aims to analyze how EU conditionality in minority related policies has become successful in Romania but not in Turkey through the application of the external incentives model to the cases to see under which circumstances minority rights measures were adopted and refused. The book attempts to test the external incentive model's assumptions and expectations within the cases of Romania and Turkey. It is argued that although the veto players and domestic adoption costs primarily determine the success of EU conditionality in minority rights in target states, the EU conditionality can, to an extent, undermine the power of resistant political forces by credible membership prospect and clear conditions.