Description
This paper investigates EU–Turkey bureaucratic relations as a site of institutional resilience and political repair amid escalating global and regional crises of governance. In a period marked by authoritarian drift, democratic backsliding, and declining political commitment to international norms, we foreground the often-overlooked role of bureaucratic labor in sustaining transnational cooperation. Drawing on elite sociology, we trace how Turkey’s EU affairs departments have been established, merged, or dismantled since the 1987 accession application—revealing how administrative restructuring reflects deeper contestations over legitimacy, sovereignty, and global engagement. Focusing on patterns of ministerial circulation and institutional reshuffles, we examine how Turkish bureaucrats navigate shifting political terrain while acting as agents of continuity and adaptation. Despite recurrent disruptions, they have preserved institutional memory, adjusted policy instruments, and maintained channels of dialogue with EU counterparts. Based on 84 in-depth elite interviews with Turkey's EU bureaucrats and 30 published memoirs, the study reveals how everyday bureaucratic practices perform epistemic and symbolic work that helps stabilize cooperation in fractured contexts. This paper repositions bureaucracy as a key site where knowledge, authority, and legitimacy are reconfigured in the face of systemic uncertainty (supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye-TÜBİTAK Project No: 122K720).
