Cherry-Picking in Policymaking: The EU’s Presumptive Roles on Gender Policymaking in Turkey

Abstract

This chapter studies the role of the European Union (EU) on the political representation of women by relying on the floor-work and parliamentary commission work of women in the Turkish parliament between 2009 and 2019. It illustrates that the EU’s influence initially worked through an interest-driven model as motivated by the EU’s incentives but was eventually replaced by the lesson-driven approach, where femocrats triggered norm adoption even in the absence of the EU-level pressures in the post-2010 period. In both cases, norm adoption followed a ‘cherry-picking approach’ as the only EU rules that are appropriate vis-à-vis majoritarian identity and values are accepted while norm application is effectively hindered both by the majoritarianism and by polarisation (secularism vs. Islamism) in the parliament and the absence of short-term rewards from the EU. Hence, the increasing numerical representation of women did not lead to greater cooperation of incumbent and opposition parties with women MPs even with regard to gender-related issues such as domestic violence against women and childcare protection concerns. © 2021, The Author(s).