About
38
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300
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Citations since 2017
Introduction
I am Associate Professor and Head of the EU Research Center at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Izmir University of Economics. I hold a Jean-Monnet-Chair between 2015 and 2018. My research areas are: (1) Political system of EU: power relations within and across the EU institutions, (2) EU policies: migration/integration, environment/energy, social policy (3) External influence of the EU: enlargement policy and policy learning/socialization, (4) EU-Turkey relations. I have published in journals such as: Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of European Integration, Public Administration, South European Society and Politics, Turkish Studies, German Politics and European Integration Online Papers.
Additional affiliations
February 2009 - present
Position
- Professor (Associate)
Description
- Personal Website: https://people.ieu.edu.tr/en/alexanderbuergin/main Head of EU Research Center/Jean Monnet Chair 2015-2018 https://ekoab.ieu.edu.tr/en
February 2009 - present
Position
- Professor (Associate)
Description
- I teach several courses on the EU such as History and Institutions of the EU, EU-Turkey relations, Policy Making in the EU and European Union Politics
May 2004 - January 2007
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- Research project on constitutionalisation processes in the EU, PhD Thesis on normative standards as negotiation resource in the European Convention Link: https://www.nomos-shop.de/B%C3%BCrgin-Legitimit%C3%A4t-EU/productview.aspx?product=9300
Education
May 2004 - January 2007
September 2001 - June 2003
September 2000 - July 2001
Publications
Publications (38)
Based on a review of the relations between the European Commission (EC) and Turkey across a selection of policy areas, this chapter illustrates two aspects of EC influence in EU–Turkey relations. First, as a defender of the rules of the (enlargement) game, the Commission has rebuffed attempts by some member states to undermine Turkey’s membership p...
Upon taking office as President of the European Commission in 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker initiated a series of reforms to the internal workings of the EU executive. Existing research suggests that these have been successful in increasing political steering, creating a Commission which focuses on fewer fields, controls the policy activism of its offi...
Recent reforms in the reporting and monitoring process, in particular enabled by advances in digital technology, have made three main contributions to the European Commission's capacity to monitor member states' compliance with EU environmental law. First, quicker access to data has been achieved by increased levels of publicly available electronic...
Using illustrations from Energy Union-related legislative initiatives, this article argues that organizational reforms have led to a more top-down approach in the steering of the European Commission, allowing Commission President Juncker a more centralized internal leadership than his predecessor Barroso. Interviews with EU policy-makers revealed t...
Exploring the party political learning of the German Greens, a powerful agent of environmental policy in European politics, we identify the strategic and programmatic lessons learned from their failure in the 2013 general elections and explain the party politics that facilitated these lessons. We advance research on learning from failures by unders...
This article presents evidence for the positive effects of digitalization on the institutional capacity of key stakeholders, which is a necessary precondition for narrowing the existing implementation gap in European Union environmental law. Based on document analysis and semistructured interviews with actors involved in the implementation process,...
In view of Turkey’s increasing distance from the European Union (EU), the continued partial alignment with EU standards is often attributed either to domestic factors, or to diffusion processes induced by external actors other than the EU. Against this background, in this special issue, we explore the extent to which reforms in Turkey’s environment...
This article argues that EU-induced learning processes in Turkish domestic politics deserve greater attention within the Turkey-related Europeanization literature, which, in view of Turkey’s increasing distance from the European Union, tends to attribute a continued partial alignment with EU policies to either domestic, or to non-EU-related externa...
How do the European Commission’s and the European Parliament (EP) Secretariat’s better regulation agendas affect the EP’s intra- and inter-institutional relations? Based on document analysis and interviews with members of the EP and EU officials, this article presents four key findings. First, the increase in inter-institutional coordination has st...
Based on a description of the deterioration of EU-Turkey relations in recent years, this article illustrates the disadvantages of further alienation for both sides, arguing that, despite the political tensions, there is no alternative to the continuation of the dialogue, which would better serve the economic and security interests of both sides. Th...
Implementation gaps of European Union (EU) environmental policy are explained, inter alia, by shortcomings in knowledge, a lack of administrative capacities and weak enforcement practices. However, this article presents evidence that the scope conditions have improved, based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with actors involved i...
By most accounts, the Commission President's potential for political leadership within the EU system has declined since the 1990s, due to the increasingly assertive role of the European Council, and a more autonomous European Parliament (EP). Furthermore, the incumbent's authority over the Commission is complicated by the Commission's internal frag...
While the Commission’s influence on Council decisions has attracted considerable scholarly attention, its internal dynamics are still not well known, in particular regarding the individual entrepreneurship of Commissioners. Aiming to contribute to the literature on the Commission’s inner workings, this article draws comparisons between the levels o...
In view of Turkey’s increasing distance from the European Union (EU), the continued partial alignment with EU standards is often attributed either to domestic factors, or to diffusion processes induced by external actors other than the EU. However, based on interviews with officials from Turkey and the European Commission on recent reforms in migra...
Concerns over a possible brain drain and a failed integration policy have been raised by the emigration of qualified people of Turkish origin. However, there is very little reliable data available regarding the profile and motivations for this in the German-trained workforce. To explore the relative importance of different migration motivations, we...
The European Union’s (EU) influence on Turkey’s domestic politics has been characterized as weak due to the lack of credible accession perspective. However, Turkey’s adoption of an asylum law in 2013, which meets almost all demands of the EU, points to the EU’s continuing influence in this policy area. The majority of the academic experts in our on...
While in 2007 the European Commission suggested a national binding target of 20 per cent for the renewable energy share of European Union (EU) energy consumption by 2020, its proposal of January 2014 for the follow-up period until 2030 is less ambitious: first, the suggested 27 per cent share of renewables is only slightly above the expected level...
The fading credibility of Turkey's European Union (EU) membership perspective has undermined the conditionality strategy of the EU. However, outside of the formal setting of the accession talks, twinning projects are considered as a tool to keep Europeanization processes on track. Based on the principle of partnership, these projects aim to induce...
Concerns over a possible brain drain and a failed integration policy have been raised by the emigration of qualified persons of Turkish origin. However, there is little reliable data available regarding the profile and the motivations for this in the Germany-trained workforce. In order to explore the relative importance of different migration motiv...
In June 2012 the European Commission received the backing of the member states to launch a visa liberalisation process with Turkey in exchange for a readmission agreement that obliges Ankara to take back illegal immigrants who passed through Turkey as a transit country. This is a remarkable development in view of the earlier rejection by several me...
Die Migration türkeistämmiger Personen von Deutschland in die Türkei ist in den letzten Jahren stärker in den Fokus der Integrationsdebatte gerückt. Als Motive für die Abwanderung werden oft ungünstige Karrierechancen genannt, die mit einer Diskriminierung im Arbeitsleben und weiteren sozialen Ausgrenzungsmechanismen einhergehen (Griese/Sievers 201...
Is the decline of Turkish public support for the European Union (EU) membership better explained by a disappointment about the EU approach to Turkey or by the new self-confidence of the country? This question is relevant because frustration about the accession process could be overcome with more positive signals from the EU. However, if the second...
Despite diverging preferences concerning the role of the European Parliament in the institutional architecture of the European Union, the EU member states have accepted a significant increase of its power in the Lisbon Treaty. This paper argues that bargaining power alone cannot explain this result. Instead, it postulates the importance of normativ...
In January 2011, the European Commission and the Turkish government announced an agreement that obliges Turkey to take back illegal immigrants who have used Turkey as a transit country on their way to the European Union (EU). Thus, Turkey would fulfil a costly EU demand with no guarantee of the reward of EU membership. The key to understanding the...
Five years after the opening of accession talks, Turkey's EU membership prospects still provoke great controversy. Turkey-skeptics in Europe regularly voice their opposition to Turkey's EU accession. Based on the concept of normative entrapment, this paper analyzes their argumentative strategies to reverse Turkey's EU membership prospects. The find...
This article probes the conditions conducive to the constitutionalization of the European Union: under what conditions have the powers of the European Parliament been extended and the institutionalization of human rights progressed? Based on the assumption that the constinitionalization of the EU is best understood as the outcome of strateic action...
EU member states had different institutional preferences concerning the role of the European Parliament (EP) in the institutional architecture of the constitution. How can the agreement on new competences for the EP be explained in the face of these differences? This paper argues that bargaining power alone cannot explain the result. Instead it pos...
Projects
Projects (3)
Analyzing the inter- and intra-institutional power relations between European Commission, Council and European Parliament
The aim is to understand whether the EU is still relevant in Turkish domestic politics. In particular the relevance of policy learning processes (e.g. in twinning projects) is analysed.
To facilitate his political leadership inside the Commission, Juncker introduced seven Vice-Presidents, each responsible for the coordination of a team of Commissioners working on a specific priority project. In addition, Juncker further increased the Secretariat General (SG)’s staff numbers and the range of its competences in the coordination of the services. Against this background, I aim at analysing whether these organisational changes have made a contribution to the centralization of leadership inside the Commission.
