Change in the Approach of Turkey's Islamic Groups in the Process of Accession to the European Union

This paper aims to investigate the change in the approach of Turkey’s Islamic political، social and economic groups in process of accession to the European Union. It seems that process of Turkey’s accession to the European Union that has led to more Europeanization of this country، is one of the most important factors in the gradual change of preferences، behavior and sometimes identity of important part of these groups in Turkey. Changes such as reinterpretation of Islamic thoughts and identity in accordance to European norms and needs of the new bourgeois; attitude change toward EU as an enemy of Islamic identity to its friend; reinterpretation of concepts like secularism and modernization; gradual internalization of human rights، democracy and the market discourses; compliance with Europe’s business culture and entrepreneurial identity standards and European Union''s economic procedures and highlighting of pragmatic and moderate interpretations of Islam. To test this hypothesis، the author by using Europeanization literature tries to evaluate encountering history of Islamic groups in Turkey with Europe and West and impact of Turkey''s accession process to the EU in building new opportunity structure، behavior change، and sometimes identity change of the Islamist political parties، civil society and business and industrial groups.