Asian Social Science; Vol. 12, No. 9; 2016 ISSN 1911-2017 E-ISSN 1911-2025 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 1 Cultural Challenges Facing Turkey’s Membership in the European Union Ahmad Jansiz 1 , Saeed Sadeghi 2 , Jalal Mirzaei 3 & Mustafa Tarin 4 1 Political Science, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran 2 Political Science, University of Payame Noor, Iran 3 Political Science, University of Shahid Bahonar, Kerman, Iran 4 Independent Researcher on International Relations, Rasht, Iran Correspondence: Ahmad Jansiz, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Humanity, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran. Tel: 98-912-384-4835. E-mail: jansiz@guilan.ac.ir Received: July 14, 2016 Accepted: July 30, 2016 Online Published: August 26, 2016 doi:10.5539/ass.v12n9p1 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ass.v12n9p1 Abstract Turkey is one of the first countries asking for membership in the European Union but has not been able to achieve this goal. Even today the prospect of its membership is vague. Turkey hopes to join the EU in its 100 th anniversary of independence in 2023 and has set its strategies and policies in line with this goal. It is an Islamic country which might challenge the relatively homogeneous culture of the EU. Some European countries consider the EU a community with a homogeneous cultural, social and political principles and values and regard the orientalist policy of Turkey as an evidence for its heterogeneity with the values existing in the European societies. The present article attempts to investigate the cultural and social barriers as the main obstacle to Turkey’s membership in the EU. Erdogan also believes that cultural problems are the most important obstacle to his country’s presence in the EU. Turkey has only three alternatives if it cannot become an EU member: active involvement, becoming a bridge between East and West, and being an ordinary neighbor to Europe. If Turkey becomes a member of the EU, it can play an important and influential role in the union as the only Islamic member. The present article uses constructivism as its theoretical background and takes it for granted that Turkey faces serious challenges in its path to membership in the EU due to cultural and identity problems. Keywords: Turkey, EU, constructivism, culture, identity 1. Introduction Turkey’s membership in the EU has faced problems and obstacles due to the differences and conflicts between the two sides. Different analysts in Turkey and Europe have pointed out the various barriers to Turkey’s accession to the EU. The large population of Turkey, the high possibility of wide work force immigration into Europe, cultural and identity issues and Islam, bad economic conditions, the human rights conditions, the status of minority groups and the recognition of Cyprus by Turkey are among the problems mentioned in this regard. The authors, however, believe that the main obstacle to Turkey’s path to membership in the EU is the cultural and the Islamic identity of Turkey. Other problems are, in fact, excuses made by the European side on fear of the membership of this country with a population of 80 million Muslims which might destroy homogeneity of the European culture. In this article, we attempt to examine this issue in a constructivist framework. The main question addressed in the present article is ‘to what extent the cultural and social structure of Turkey led to failure in its long attempt to join the EU? Why Turkey has not been accepted as a part of the Western community despite its wealth of experience in democratic government and membership in security and regional treaties in Europe? The other question is ‘what challenges and opportunities could membership or non-membership of Turkey for this country?’ The hypothesis considered for these questions is that the major reason for Turkey’s lack of success in joining the EU and the main problem behind the Turkey’s negotiations with EU is the cultural challenges and Islamic identity of Turkey. Besides, in the case of membership or non-membership of this country in the EU, both these countries can turn the existing challenges into novel and even strategic opportunities.