The Americanisation of Turkey | openDemocracy 
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The Americanisation of Turkey	#
Europe’s evident failure to accomplish its transformative mission means that Turkish politics is coming under the sway, not of Europeanisation but of Americanisation. 
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 But the connection runs much deeper than the convergence of strategic interests at a critical juncture - for Turkey is also Americanising domestically. 
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P have embraced the fusion of market-friendly (or neo-liberal) economics and God once popularised by Turgut Özal, perhaps Turkey’s most distinguished Americaniser. Some critics would argue that the religious worldview shared by the AKP and the Gülenists dismisses social rights and redistribution and sees welfare #
 But if Turkey is embracing Americanisation rather than Europeanisation, could this process provide a (better) answer to Turkey's burning questions of citizenship and national identity? Again, #
 So there are also obstacles to Turkey's Americanisation. Turkey’s new establishment has very few knee-jerk Americanophiles (similar to the old secular one, whose attitude to the US was highly instrumental). #
Turkey's public opinion has traditionally been, as elsewhere in southern Europe, a hotbed of anti-Americanism. The German Marshall Fund’s "transatlantic trends" poll in 2011 finds out that 62% of Turks hold negative views of the US, the highest percentage of #
all countries surveyed. There is no causal relationship between Turkey’s internal Americanisation and the country’s behaviour vis-à-vis the US, which is essentially a balancing act between the pursuit of security in a turbulent environment and the #